Hayestack

It was about midnight and we were just slipping off to sleep when loud screams of searing pain snapped us back to reality. Someone was murdering a child outside our bedroom window. Georgina jumped up and peered out. The body was slung to the branch of a tree and was howling pitifully like an animal.

“They’re skinning it,” she said. “Looks like a goat”

“Poor kid,” I thought. I could see black shapes moving among the shadows and I suddenly realised the date. It was Halloween and midnight at that. Maybe our neighbours were Satanists performing a sick, sadistic ritual to placate their evil spirits. Couldn’t they go “trick and treating” instead? There was a severe crack of bone as they tore their poor victim apart in their frenzy.

Let me digress for a moment and tell you about Namibian sweets. They are unutterably disgusting. To my mind they are inedible. Wrapped in shiny, coloured foil they are all show and no substance. Street traders sell them individually by the side of the road. We had one on our pillows at the posh Tsumeb hotel to confirm its luxury status. It tasted sweet and scented like cheap perfume. It began to foam in my mouth. Was I eating the complimentary soap? No, it had been in a sweet wrapper, and had looked like a sweet. Were they used as punishment for naughty children as in “Go and wash your mouth out with soap and water.” Perhaps I should have washed my hands with it and eaten the complimentary soap instead. It couldn’t have tasted worse.

Back to the slaughter. It turned out that our neighbours were having a separation party and had killed the goat for the occasion. The man was leaving his wife and family to live with his second wife/mistress a couple of hundred miles away. They were having a big party to celebrate. In fact, it was a two goat party. We were treated to slaughter part two the following morning. The children were sitting around in eager anticipation. We had thought the midnight killing was to spare them, but no, here they were in the best seats. We had a great view from our bedroom and, like bullfighting this was definitely a spectator sport. The handsome, white male goat had been strung up to the hanging tree by its hind legs and for some reason didn’t like it. It screamed horribly. The father and two oldest sons stood by ready to do their bit. One of the sons grabbed the goat’s horns to stop it swinging like a pendulum while the father danced around, his large knife glinting in the sunlight, trying to find the best angle of attack. The father stepped forward and put the knife to the goat’s throat. The creature struggled so fiercely that the two killers could barely restrain the animal’s head. In a few moments a thick line of red liquid began to pour from the goat’s neck. All the while the goat screamed hysterically. Suddenly, the father stepped forward again, grabbed the goat’s genitals and sliced them off with one swift stroke of the knife. There was now an empty, pale pink patch between the goat’s legs. All the while it kept screaming and panicking though now, no doubt sensing that the game was up, was putting up less of a struggle. The five and six year olds were, by now, in a high state of animation running around copying the harrowing death cries of the agonised goat. After some minutes the goat became still. The steady trickle of blood from its neck continued. “Baargh, baargh.” The children still danced around screaming in mock imitation of the goat’s last agony.

The party was a big one and grew to a crescendo throughout the day. People kept arriving, the women carrying bowls of food, the men six-packs of beer. They seemed less eager than the women to relinquish their burdens but sat down in a group becoming more animated as they drank and chatted away. A bakkie (pickup van) arrived with a cheap looking sideboard and bookcase. Maybe the deal was that she got some MFI furniture and he got his freedom? Fair, no? The DJ tested his equipment. The house vibrated with the noise. The hired, plastic chairs arrived and were set out for a formal meeting with a table at the front. The master of ceremonies began to list the programme for the evening. There would be speeches, eulogies celebrating the family’s worth, the father’s sterling qualities and his achievements (eg. gaining his freedom at so little cost). There would be singing and there would be dancing. At this the heavens opened and everyone, carrying their plastic chairs, ran for shelter. I hoped the sound system had been flooded beyond use, but, miraculously, it survived.

The rain subsided and the group reformed. Again the heavens opened and again people ran. The party was not proving to be a unparalleled success and, like the couple’s marriage, was on a steady decline until it petered out around midnight. It all seemed rather sad.

Tags: eating, Georgina, Tsumeb

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 30th, 2008 at 3:08 pm and is filed under Namibia. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.