Farm life was never part of my upbringing. My mom worked at a cafeteria so we got a lot of food from there – no farm animals at our house only a stray cat once in awhile and no vegetable garden to attend to. So my first visit to the butcher in Tala, Kenya was an experience…
Walking into the butcher’s you first see in the window where all the meat is hanging. It’s freshly slaughtered that morning (I can remember a couple of times going to the butcher’s but he had not slaughtered the goat yet so we had to return at a later time). You tell the butcher how many kg’s (kilograms) of meat you want, he walks to the window, hacks off a chunk of meat from the window (bones included) and brings it to the counter (pictured above).
(I’m not going to get into any sanitation issues with any of the above – no refrigeration for the meat to hang in, no running water to wash hands/machetes (which are used to cut the meat/internal organs/bones), no sanitizer around for wiping surfaces – I could go on but that’s not what this post is about!)
Then the butcher will put the meat on a scale (you can see a small portion of it in the picture below) with weights on the other side to weigh how much meat you want and remember you are also getting bones in that. He’s pretty good at estimating the weight, but will cut pieces off or add more as needed. After he gets the right amount he will wrap the meat in brown paper, put it in a plastic bag and possibly give you a few herbs to cook with the meat.
I also wanted to mention, in the above photo are the goat intestines (along with other various internal organs) and these are considered a delicacy to many Kenyans. We had the honor of being served these a couple of times but we try to persuade the locals not to serve us anything “special” since that means taking food off their table for their family and feeding us. Plus, meat is a luxury many families aren’t able to afford and we don’t want them to use their few shillings (Kenyan money) on food or slaughtering their only goat/chicken for us. We ask them instead for a cup of tea or if we know the family is very poor (so even tea would be a stretch for them) we will ask the mother or grandmother to pray for us.
Many of those prayers were said in their tribal language but we could sense their devotion and thanks to God, just as in David’s psalm of thanks:
Give thanks to the LORD, call on his name;
make known among the nations what he has done.Sing to him, sing praise to him;
tell of all his wonderful acts.Glory in his holy name;
let the hearts of those who seek the LORD rejoice.Look to the LORD and his strength;
seek his face always.Remember the wonders he has done…
