Thank the goat for lunch

In America, agricultural science is only at some universities but here in Tanzania, it is taught in secondary school. My school is surrounded by farm fields and wandering livestock because that’s how the tribes (Iraqw & Barabaig) have made their living for countless years. It should come as no surprise that the students and teachers take the subject pretty seriously – it is probably the most relevant subject to their everyday lives.

Today a goat was sacrificed in the name of education. At the beginning of the teaching day, a goat was bleating (crying) behind the laboratory building. Not long after, there was a cry and then silence. A little later I allowed myself to be shown part of the dissection. The goat’s throat was slit and the students (my Form 3’s) were nearly finished skinning it. When I returned to the lab later, a couple of teachers were arranging and labeling the different organs. Specifically, the purpose of the lesson was for the students to understand the digestive tract of ungulate animals (think those with hooves). Therefore, the throat to stomach to intestines to anus (and everything in between) was spread out on a couple of long (wooden) lab tables. It was interesting to see but I didn’t stick around long because the smell wasn’t great and I’d rather not know what other surfaces came into contact with goat gut fluids.

During chai or in between classes, I was joking with a few other teachers that because of the goat dissection, we would have meat at lunch. I wasn’t sure how much was joking and how much was serious; I don’t think most of us were sure if we would end up eating the goat. Well, we did. I was hoping it’d taste really good because it was fresh meat but it wasn’t cooked very well; at least I ate meat (a rarity for me because I don’t bother to buy & cook it).

Normally I don’t listen too much to conversations in the staff room because I can only catch a word here and there that I understand. Yet I was able to hear enough words today during lunch and string them together to figure out that the results from last years national exam (NECTA) are out and online. Up to this point, I hadn’t told the other teachers that I have a modem but this seemed like a good reason to bring it out. There were about 8 teachers gathered close to me at the computer as I looked up the results not only for my school, but also a plethora (many) of other schools the teachers asked me to look at. I’m not sure what was supposed to get done this afternoon but I spent it and the early evening looking up (mostly waiting for) test results.