Goat Update - 80 delivered, 75 to go

Since our first goat post, we have made 3 more trips to the goat market and picked up 20 each time resulting in a total of 80 goats distributed. We have 75 left to distribute. We have photos of each goat with a sign of their owner and the goat name which we'll email once we're in Asia since the connection will be much faster. However, for your entertainment,  here are some random goat adventures

·         After the school parade, we headed off with Teste to the goat market. Teste insisted on wearing his pink parade crown to the goat market, and didn’t heed our concern that he might be ripped off because he looked like royalty. (heh heh heh) Oddly enough it might have worked in his favour – he was able to get some great deals.

·         It’s not uncommon while at the goat market for children to come up to us and just stare at us. There’s absolutely nothing uncomfortable about it since we understand they’re simply fascinated by our muzungu-ness. Some of them want to practice their English so we have the basic conversations of “Hello, how are you, what is your name, how old are you, where are you from” which never tire us since it’s always conducted with plenty of smiles.

·         This past Friday, one of the goat vendors was wearing a Peterborough Lakers Lacrosse t-shirt. Dave was particularly thrilled about this as Peterborough is his hometown! We explained to the vendor the fortuitous coincidence and implored he should give us a great price for his goat. He countered that we should pay him even more because of the connection. We settled for an average price with him.

·         After purchasing the 20 goats and waiting for the truck to transport it back to the school, a boy walked by holding a live chicken. Teste turned to me with a grin and offered “Should we have chicken for dinner?”. Dal’s been craving chicken so I quickly agreed, and 2500 Rwanda Francs later (about $5 CDN), I had the live chicken cradled in my right arm.  It’s feet/wings were tied together to prevent it flying away. We then sent a boy into the market to buy 2 more chickens so that we could have a nice feast at home as the 3 Brit volunteers were leaving that night. As I held the chicken, I wondered if I was going to undergo a personal awakening and realize that this live chicken I held in my arms was one of God’s creations that deserved a better fate and that I could live off the land and be content as a vegetarian. Nope..didn’t happen. It really was finger lickin’ good.