The Goat

There are some very graphic pictures in today's post. Please do not continue if you are offended by blood and guts.

Out of everything we had been told about this week in Engaruka, I was most nervous about the goat sacrifice.  I had heard stories from friends and had of course imagined it in my own mind and thought it was going to be very cruel and traumatic for both the goat and myself. After spending just a short amount of time in the village though, it became very apparent that in order to eat meat, an animal must die. It is just a fact of life, and a fact that can be easily forgotten or pushed out of one's mind when shopping in the clinical aisles of Woolworths. Traditionally, the Maasai diet consisted mainly of milk, blood and meat, so livestock became very important to them and the killing of a goat, for food or sacrifice, is quite an important event.

So we set off with a bunch of warriors to a local ceremony place.Goats are really only sacrificed as an offering in times of drought so this would be more of a celebratory thing where everyone could just come and have a big feed. But before any of that could happen, we needed to make fire. The Maasai way involves using a shoe, two sticks and some donkey poo. Too easy.

And then the goat arrived. I was adamant I wasn't going to get too attached so I kept my distance and avoided his big brown eyes. Apparently a goat of this size costs 55 000TSH ($33AU) which is quite a bargain considering how many people it fed that day.

I wont show you any pictures of the actual 'killing' bit, but I will tell you it was nowhere near as bad as I imagined. The goat was quite calm and the warriors just quickly restrained it and smothered it with as little suffering to the goat as possible. A final knife to the heart made sure the job was done properly.

Every single bit of the goat is used. Head, bowels, liver, neck, lungs...everything. The skin is incredibly useful as well so a lot of time went in to making sure the butchering was done properly.

The spleen and a bit of cleaned out bowel were thrown into the fire as a ceremonial gesture to be used later. And then the kidney was yanked out and before I knew it someone was shoving a piece in my mouth and telling me to eat it. Here it is.

And this is what I thought about it.

It kind of had the texture and taste of salmon sashimi but a little more metallic. At least it wasn't the urine-like taste I was expecting.

I don't know what I expected but I was really shocked to see just how much a goat's insides look like a human's. The liver and gallbladder looked as healthy as could be...before they were barbequed, that is.

The cooked spleen and bowel were sort of mashed up and then mixed back in with the blood in the body cavity. This was to be our next delicacy. Again, I tried it, but I wasn't too impressed.

The warriors didn't wait for the cup, they just got stuck in.

Then everything was sort of strung up like a kite or thrown into a pot for cooking. I really couldn't bring myself to eat much more. I had been lulled into a false sense of security with Witness' delicious goat skewers at home. They are tender and delicious. This BBQ'd goat was tough and gristly and all seemed to taste like the kidney from earlier. I decided to leave it for the warriors - they seemed to be enjoying it much more than I was. Even the little kid who got tossed a lung seemed to devour it with pleasure.

There was some singing and jumping and carrying on afterwards but all I could think about was getting home. My stomach was doing cartwheels. No more goat for this tourist.

It was a strange day. This is how these people live and eat. It was so foreign to me and so natural for them. Many of us eat meat in this world but how many of us have ever raised an animal, slaughtered it and made use of it in its entirety. Truly appreciated it. It made me think about what happens to our livestock at home. I don't know much about the process it goes through to get to our supermarket shelves or even how long it takes to get there. These Maasai were horrified to think about eating an animal that had not been slaughtered that day. They said 'why would you want to eat old meat?'. Why indeed. But I guess that attitude is to be expected in a land without refrigeration!

Till next time x