A funny thing happened yesterday. I was looking after my worm box while talking to a 78 year old man who was roasting his coffee beans about how to make a chocolatey drink from the seeds of ocra. When all of a sudden a shriek came from behind the house. Irene, my Panamanien sister, came running up to the house, in a hurry. She spoke some form of unrecognizable Spanish to her mother. I recognized the words pollo(chicken) and servicio(latrine). After hearing these two words spoken in such an excited and half-laughing manner, I knew that something hilarious was about to take place. A few moments later all the little kids were running to the pit latrine where the shreik originated. I too am consumed with fascination and proceed to the latrine to investigate the matter further. What I find upon arrrival is something you could never imagine happening in Atlanta. A chicken, which they affectionately call "pollo de patio" or free-range chicken, had mistakenly fallen into the pit latrine while trying to cosey up on the roof for the evening. This poor pollo was stuck in a shit hole of misery and, as fate would have it, this bird couldn't fly its way out. I arrive at the latrine and Doris, my Panamanian mother, has what looks like a fishing pole with a rope attatched to it. I look at her and she says, "We are going fishing for chicken." I ask in return, "do you need any worms." We laugh. She steps into the foul smelling shack of tin and timber with a fishing pole and a flashlight. She drops the line into the pit and slides the make-shift noose around the chickens neck and yanks it out of the fecal depository. I snapped a picture seconds later. This once white chicken was noticably brown and fowl smelling (no pun intended). After the heroic rescue, the chicken just stood there with its head towards the ground, until Doris kicked it, the chicken flapped its wings and ran away as a cloud of shit sprayed over a few little kids standing near the freed shitken. I exclaimed a few moments later that I am, for the foreseeable future, on a new diet that consists of everything but pollo de patio.
8.22.2008
Shitken
A funny thing happened yesterday. I was looking after my worm box while talking to a 78 year old man who was roasting his coffee beans about how to make a chocolatey drink from the seeds of ocra. When all of a sudden a shriek came from behind the house. Irene, my Panamanien sister, came running up to the house, in a hurry. She spoke some form of unrecognizable Spanish to her mother. I recognized the words pollo(chicken) and servicio(latrine). After hearing these two words spoken in such an excited and half-laughing manner, I knew that something hilarious was about to take place. A few moments later all the little kids were running to the pit latrine where the shreik originated. I too am consumed with fascination and proceed to the latrine to investigate the matter further. What I find upon arrrival is something you could never imagine happening in Atlanta. A chicken, which they affectionately call "pollo de patio" or free-range chicken, had mistakenly fallen into the pit latrine while trying to cosey up on the roof for the evening. This poor pollo was stuck in a shit hole of misery and, as fate would have it, this bird couldn't fly its way out. I arrive at the latrine and Doris, my Panamanian mother, has what looks like a fishing pole with a rope attatched to it. I look at her and she says, "We are going fishing for chicken." I ask in return, "do you need any worms." We laugh. She steps into the foul smelling shack of tin and timber with a fishing pole and a flashlight. She drops the line into the pit and slides the make-shift noose around the chickens neck and yanks it out of the fecal depository. I snapped a picture seconds later. This once white chicken was noticably brown and fowl smelling (no pun intended). After the heroic rescue, the chicken just stood there with its head towards the ground, until Doris kicked it, the chicken flapped its wings and ran away as a cloud of shit sprayed over a few little kids standing near the freed shitken. I exclaimed a few moments later that I am, for the foreseeable future, on a new diet that consists of everything but pollo de patio.
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2 comments:
When you think about it... The chicken had a pretty ingenious plan. Yes, it had to do the back-stroke in a pool of human waste, but nobody's going to be eating him any time soon... They say freedom isn't free.
brilliant!
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