christmas eve

I watched them slaughter a cow.

I didn't think I could do it, but I did.

I watched them - 5 or 6 men - bring it to the ground, restrain is struggling legs, bind them with rope.

Me and the other kids were gathered around, ready to explode in response to the tension in the air of something about to be murdered. We were too squeamish to get close, but too curious to stay away.

It took a long time, slow motion it felt like, for the man in the suspenders and blue baseball cap to identify a window of peace during which we he finally, and respectfully, slit the creature's throat.



In the following minutes the cow laid there, bleeding, with its head on a hinge. Still kicking and struggling to breathe. The sound was like someone slurping at the bottom of a glass of soda though there's nothing left but melting ice. The sound of an oozing, seeping airway.

Its powerful neck muscles glimmered red, exposed in the path of a lantern being held up by a young boy. He had an important job, that boy, directing the stark shadowy light for the carver to navigate the cow's endless map of sinews.

The lantern boy was working mostly against me as I moved around the scene, trying to interpret it through a lens. Forgetting myself through the camera, allowing myself to crouch much closer than I ever would have otherwise. Many times even bumping into folks who were standing there - in the pool table of possible camera angles. "I have to capture that. Now." I was zonin.



The whole thing should have traumatized me more than it actually did. Then again, I had the peace of mind of knowing that I don't normally, and didn't plan to, eat any of that shit.

The carver had finished removing the hide. He now worked to remove individual organs and isolate them on top of large banana leaves. There was a fire going a few feet away.

They were going to start eating. I found something else to do.



This, I decided, is my limit. It is the one fear I haven't bold faced since I've been here. And as long as it remains the only one, I think it's okay.