There Will Be Blood

Here I sit after another long day of Peace Corps training, listening to some Christmas music by the legendary James Taylor and thinking about how this Christmas is vastly different than those of years past. I am typically a person that loves everything about Christmas. Ever since I was young I would spend hours perfecting our Christmas lights and decorating the house. Even in college, I played a leading role in planning for our annual Christmas party. I love going to church on Christmas eve and singing Christmas carols. But I will not be able to do any of that this year (or for the next two years). Nor will I be able to watch one of my favorite movies, Its a Wonderful Life, or gather around the dinner table with my extended family to enjoy a huge American Christmas feast followed by various pies and my grandmas famous banana cookies.

Well, this Christmas will be different for many reasons, the most obvious being that I am in Kenya. But most certainly the biggest difference is what I will be doing on Christmas morning. In many tribes in Kenya it is customary to have roasted goat meat for Christmas. This is actually delicious as I have had this before. I have recently discovered we will be having goat for Christmas, and furthermore, this goat is alive and is currently outside nibbling on the grass. Yes, the goat is alive. So tomorrow morning, instead of waking up to see what Santa left me for Christmas. I will wake up and assist my Kenyan family in the slaughtering and cooking of this goat. And by slaughter, I mean slice his freaking head off. And by assist, I mean I am the one actually doing the slicing.

Last night at dinner I continued my endless interrogation about the slaughtering process. I learned something even more disturbing than the actual slaughtering. I learned what parts of the goat we will be eating. To sum up, EVERYTHING! Everything but the skin and the bones. EVERYTHING! The men must eat the tongue, heart, and wait for it, testes. Yeah, the freaking balls. I could not believe my ears. My Kenyan family is amused by how disturbed I am with this whole thing. They were absolutely shocked that I have never slaughtered anything. My momma said that the heart and tongue are “Oh, so sweet!” The ears are a favorite of my oldest brother while my youngest brother is a big fan of the liver.

It was difficult to sleep last night because my mind was filled with so many questions. What kind of knife will I be using? Will it be sharp enough? How long does it take to decapitate a goat? Do I just slice its throat and wait for it to suffocate? Or do I ferociously continue on through the spine until the head is completely detached? Will I faint? Will I vomit? How much blood will there be? Will it spray everywhere and into my face? Afterwards, will I look like Mel Gibson in The Patriot after he brutally murdered a British soldier with a Cherokee tomahawk? What will the heart taste like? Will the testes squish and explode with flavor once I bite into them? Is this really going to happen? Is this some kind of sick joke? Where is Mike Rowe? Will I have to skin the goat? Will this haunt me every Christmas for the rest of my life?

I found out some of the answers to my questions today. Here is what I know so far: The goat will be on its back and my baba, being the strongest, will bear most of the work in holding the animal down. My three brothers will assist in either holding the horns, head or legs. And yours truly will be the one with the knife. I was shown the knife. It is very dull and the handle is broken. How can I apply any pressure if the handle is broken? I spent quite some time attempting to sharpen the knife but I am still not satisfied. The just want a sharp knife so I can just get this over with as fast as possible. I think I may end up using a ten dollar knife that I purchased at Wal-Mart before I came to Kenya.

So to clarify, tomorrow on Christmas morning, I will be killing a goat. I still am completely shocked that this is happening.

I have never dreaded a Christmas before…