Death of a Chicken (at my own hand)

Sorry, vegetarian readers.

It took a few years, but I have now accomplished my Michael Pollan-invoked duty: to kill and prepare my dinner. (Or, for the sake of accuracy, lunch.)

It all happened Thursday, the penultimate day of the permaculture training we’ve been holding all week for teachers of Msalura primary and secondary schools. The participants learned about water management, land design principles, nutrition security, and medicinal gardening, and additionally they enjoyed delicious lunches featuring a variety of local foods from all six of the Malawian food groups. Thus it was that I spent a large chunk of each day biking here and there for menu items: goat at Takumana market, three chickens at Kamuzu Road, bananas and fresh chambo near the bus depot. I spent a lot of time with the facilitator’s wife, Mrs. Chawawa, and her very competent assistants, Charity and Mrs. Chimpeni, who took pleasure in improving my Chichewa and teaching me how to kill and pluck a chicken.

At the start of each day, Mrs. Chawawa listed the foods Ieft to track down and bring back to the cooks. On Thursday, she sent me to the market for “nkhuku atatu” (three chickens). “Tambala!” she kept repeating to my confusion; tambala is the smallest denomination coin here, virtually worthless. I have since discovered one face of the coin features a cock, and we eventually established that she wanted three “amuna” (man) chickens. So, I peddled away to Kamuzu Road market, strapped three fat local tambala to my bike rack, and made my way warily back, finding it difficult to maneuver the bicycle very far without getting my skirt or the chickens’ heads caught in the rear-wheel spokes.

For some reason, it was decided that I would dispatch one chicken and Mr. Simphire, a teacher participant, would kill the other two. The need for a halaal method was debated and eventually discarded, since no one in the group was Muslim. And so, Mrs. Chimpeni (whose name means “knife”) led us behind the back fence, apparently a more hygienic place to do the deed. Holding the wing of my bird, I felt it grow still as Mr. Simphire began on the first chicken, pinning its feet and then pulling back its neck so he could pluck away the throat feathers. He cut it quickly and yet the bird’s body shuddered for a few minutes as the blood seeped out of its throbbing neck. He wiped the red knife on the white feathers and handed it to me. Mrs. Chimpeni demonstrated how I could pin down the wings and feet, and then I pulled at the tufts of its neck feathers and severed the neck, holding the quivering body as the life ran out. After we placed the three beheaded chickens in a basin, they continued to jump and flutter for a moment.

Mrs. Chawawa led us to a pot of boiling water, in which we dangled each bird, the hot water loosening the feathers from the pimpled skin. She showed me the three kinds of chicken feathers, tufty white fluff under the joints, long black feathers on the wings, and smaller thin feathers underneath. We plucked and pulled, peeling away the extra layer of skin on the feet, dislodging the beak and tongue. To remove the last remnants of hair and feathers, we singed them in the fire, and finally they came away too. Behind the fence, neighborhood dogs snarled for a share of the spilled blood.

And that was how I killed and plucked a chicken. It was a surprisingly emotionless affair at the time, such an everyday and matter-of-fact event for Mrs. Chimpeni, the chickens, and the hungry dogs. After a few days of contemplation, I feel a little sad thinking about my conscious participation in the death of an animal, though I know I participate in that process every time I eat meat, and at some point or another I should come face to face with the extent of that act. I think, however, it will be my first and last experience in killing chickens, or anything else for that matter.

As for the permaculture training, it turned out to be a big success and a good sign of things to come. Though some teachers started off a little wary of some concepts (no sweeping, as you’ll remember, seems especially threatening to Malawians), they were all converts by Monday afternoon.

Mr. Chawawa, the facilitator, brought with him a huge collection of handouts and books, and designated a teacher as a librarian for the week to maintain these on a resource table every day. He began the week with the lesson that Malawi is rich in resources, but lacking in memory and imagination of how to use them. Participants went out and found items they consider useless and then they were shown that most “trash” can be put to some kind of good use. The first two days were spent discussing food and nutrition security, and how healthy living is achievable with locally available but often forgotten foods.

Mrs. Chawawa and her team, over the course of the week, prepared a series of delicious teas and juices: bwemba, malambe (baobob), papaya, lemongrass, chitimbe, chidede, and others, each with the ability to remedy some ailment or another. As I mentioned above, she also orchestrated the preparation of healthy and delicious lunches, with varied examples from each of the six food groups in Malawi. (I was playfully shamed a few times for having misgrouped certain menu items; soya is not a protein here, it is a legume). The teachers were delighted to rediscover certain foods and learn that wild basil, widely considered a useless weed, is in fact an edible, nutritious, and valuable herb. That last quality—value—really seemed to hit home with many of the teachers; Mr. Chawawa emphasized that they could improve family and student health and, at the same time, save money or even supplement their salaries with a year-round kitchen garden.

On Tuesday, my friend Kennie, a volunteer at the NdiMoyo Palliative Care Clinic in Salima, shared about the medicinal qualities of many common plants and herbs. He distributed recipes for the home treatment of a variety of maladies, and remained for the rest of the week to supplement Mr. Chawawa’s sessions with information about medicinal gardening. He has promised to visit the schools regularly and assist as we are planting the garden; he will be a big help.

On Wednesday, the group traveled to Mr. Chawawa’s home in Mchezi, to observe permaculture in action. “Your disorder is my order,” he laughed as we disembarked from the minibus and looked upon a bushy front yard, full of trees and brick-lined pathways that, not swept bare, were instead strewn with a mulch of thick green banana leaves. Although Malawi is in the height of dry season and the rest of the country is dusty and dead, Mr. Chawawa’s home was lush and plentiful with ripe foods. He introduced the teachers to the concept of “guilds,” plants grouped together to support and sustain one another: a guild can have diggers, supporters, climbers, and protectors. Behind the house, we found an immense plot of gardens dotted with a series of fish ponds, some of which drain in the dry season and serve as nutrient-packed soil for vegetable beds. For three hours we tromped through the maze of paths surrounding the Chawawa home, learning about plants and design, sampling stalks of sugarcane, and seeing how very possible it is for Malawians to grow enough to eat plentifully and thrive. Mrs. Chawawa then served the sun-worn group a feast of cassava, banana, ngaiwa nsima, beans, fried cabbage, eggs, and an assortment of other foods grown on the homestead.

The following day, after lunch, the group began the practicum aspect of the training at the primary school. They hauled bricks and rocks from around the campus and then constructed a mandala design with key-hole pathways around a young tree near the headmaster’s office, each path of the circle varying in height in order to catch and control water. After the paths were made, the teachers found leaves and ash and manure to feed the soil. On Friday, in the afternoon—it happened to be the first incredibly HOT day of the season—we visited the secondary school garden site and began preparing the soil and laying brick designs there too.

Afterward, we gathered for distribution of certificates of participation (Malawians LOVE certificates!), and for final comments on the training. We encouraged the teachers to implement what they learned, and to support one another like a guild as they bring these “new” ideas back to their homes and school communities. The teachers left inspired and very excited about the possibilities of permaculture at their respective schools. You can guess it was gratifying to see some of the same teachers that mocked our permaculture efforts a few months ago offer support and encouragement to the project. Envy can be such a hindrance to success here, and it seemed to be holding many of the secondary teachers back from getting involved. By opening the training to so many interested teachers, no one could be upset that they were not included from participating, and there was a real sense of camaraderie at the end. I am hoping it keeps up.

The training was sponsored by Biggin Hill school community in England, and especially through the help of Martin Pullen, a friend of Msalura primary school. He visited Salima a few months ago and helped spark interest in the school garden project when my own hope (because of the issues mentioned above) was flagging. So, a very big thank you to Biggin Hill.

In other news: on Thursday, Sally, my new health sector site mate, moved to town, and I stopped by her house to welcome her. The sun, which has been kindly mild for a few months, returned keenly to welcome her as well. Salima is hot again.

“I killed a chicken today,” I told her.

“Oh. I’m a vegetarian,” she responded. So much for my dreams of a Salima pork party.

She forgave my faux pas, however, and l’m looking forward to future fun and adventures with my new neighbor. Next weekend: a beach day at Senga Bay and then homemade dumplings!