Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner

I realize it’s been a while since my last post, but I’ve been keeping myself busy here in Hohoe. The past two weeks have been filled extra hours at Happy Kids and visiting the regulars around town. I was glad that our schedule finally calmed down a bit and we stopped doing all of the touristy Africa stuff. There are a lot of new things going on at Happy Kids so I’ll dedicate a full update on that sometime soon, but for now I’ll share the story of my chicken dinner.

A while back I mentioned to the guys at the shop that I wanted to kill a chicken and cook it. They said that would be easy to do if I actually went through with it... so last weekend we made it happen. I figured since I’ve eaten a lot of chicken in my lifetime and was sure to be continuing my carnivorish ways I should be able to do it myself. We scheduled a large saturday chicken dinner complete with yams and kelewele (fried plaintains cut up really small and cooked with lots of spices). 

The Chicken Coop

After some questioning about what would be involved in killing the chicken, I learned that Courage had the most experience in killing animals to cook them so we took the lead on the meal. We went to a nearby chicken coop where I sized up the chickens and picked out one of the fatter hens. The woman tied up its legs and its wings and Courage and I made our way down the street to begin preparing the meal. The word had gotten around that I would be killing a chicken that afternoon so all of the guys gathered at Godson’s house to witness the event. 

Before the killing

I’ll skip all of the bloody details, but the whole thing was much harder than I thought it would be. Long story short... we dug a hole, pulled some feathers from the chickens neck and I was instructed on how to properly hold the chicken in order to cut his neck and let the blood spill into the hole. I got about half way through when I just couldn’t do it and Courage quickly stepped in to put the chicken out of its misery. 

We then dipped the chicken in boiling water to loosen his feathers, plucked it, burned the extra small feathers off and watched as Courage butchered it up. I’ll save the pictures of the butchering for those who are really interested. After the chicken was all cut up we boiled it with lots of seasoning and fried it with our little outdoor stove. Once the yams and kelewele were ready we gathered around the table to eat Ghanaian style, with everyone using their right hands to dig into the piles of food in the middle. The guys made sure that Mike and I got the best pieces of meat and they wasted none of the chicken. Almost every part of the chicken was eaten including the head, feet and bones in the legs. The kelewele and the yams with the special red sauce were delicious, but the chicken was too tough for me. 

Ready to be plucked

Boiling before frying the chicken

We spent the rest of the night sitting and talking outside after toasting to new friends and me killing my first chicken. I say first because we’re planning another big dinner for before I leave. I’ll either get another try at a chicken or move up to a turkey.

Random Things I’ve Learned/Noticed:

• Real cheese doesn't exist here. They have the small spreadable Laughing Cow kind, but that's it. The kids in my class had no clue what cheese was and it's really hard to accurately describe.
• When I walk around town by myself, I don't get the Yovo call or get followed by herds of waving children. I've also noticed that more and more people try to talk to me in Ewe when I'm out and about and are surprised when I respond in English.
• Because thin plastic bags are cheaper than plastic bottles, many items are sold in a little plastic bag of some sort. Pure water comes in a 500ml bag, salt is sold in a bag and bars sell little baggies of gin or bitters. It's a good way to keep costs down, but all of these bags just end up on the side of the road. 
• Rainy season started last week so we've been getting a solid 30 minute storm every other day or so. The rain is good because it cools everything off, but has also brought out tons of bugs.
• Midterms were last week at Happy Kids any didn’t involve exams of any kind. Midterms mean that all of the students at Happy Kids must have half of their semester school fees payed. The school was closed for two days so that students who hadn’t payed yet were able to go home to help their parents earn the money. The few kids that hadn’t payed spent the two days helping their parents in their shop, working on the family farm or selling items at the market.