So as I’ve had several requests for
an elaboration of the goat incident, here it goes. I spent Saturday in Tete
City, the provincial capital. I have to go there to go grocery shopping so I
make the trip every week or two. Any adventure to Tete is usually exhausting
since the city, which is along the banks of the Zambezi River, is regarded as
the absolute hottest point in Mozambique and probably all of Southern Africa.
Most travel guides suggest staying away as the heat is overwhelming for
visitors, but since I don’t have a market in my town, I spend a fairly
significant amount of time in one of Africa’s hottest cities. Luckily it’s a
fairly clean, friendly city, and although the shopping trips are sweaty and
exhausting, I enjoy them. Whenever I go to Tete, I spend at least half my time
sitting in a restaurant with air-conditioning and stalling as much as possible
while on errands in air-conditioned locations. My favorite restaurant has
MULTIPLE air-conditioning units, giant fans, falafel, and ice cream….it is
paradise. However, the power was out on
Saturday so Helen and I were left to run our errands amid the blistering heat
without the promise of an air-conditioned oasis lunch. All was not lost though
as the market was better stocked than usual, I found a fresh pineapple that I
could afford, and eventually the power came back on. Needless to say, when I arrived back home that
afternoon, I was pretty tired. However, there would be no time for relaxation.
As soon
as I had put down my backpack and begun to unpack my precious cargo of fruit, vegetables,
dried beans, rice, powdered milk, and peanut butter, my 7th grade neighbor
came by with bad news. She timidly told me that a goat was in my latrine. Now,
I have to explain that goats are frequently in my latrine. They use it as a
shelter when it is raining or when the sun is too hot, so I thought she was
just informing me about the usual goat trespassers, but something in her tone
warned me otherwise. She then told me to come look, so putting my shiny new jar
of peanut butter on the shelf, I followed her outside to my pit latrine. My
latrine is a cement structure with a tin roof. The floor is cement and has an opening
cut in the middle of it with a very deep pit below it (probably about 10 feet).
Although a wall provides privacy for the user, there is no door, hence the
usual goat intruders. These goats USUALLY stay away from the hole, sensing as
any intelligent goat would, its impending danger. Furthermore, the hole, over
which the user must squat to do their daily business, is too small for most
goats to fall through. It was just big enough however for a young goat to get
itself into quite a crappy situation…literally. You could even say his life was
in the pits at the moment. The poor thing had somehow managed to fall through
the hole in the floor and into the deep, incredibly disgusting contents of the
latrine. The goat was now crying and crying, calling to its mother or anyone
who would listen, or probably just crying about how much of a bummer being
trapped in a pit latrine is.
I was
startled, sad, and worried all at once. I asked my neighbor what she thought we
should do. She said the only option was to leave him in there. Not willing to
believe this, I went to talk to other neighbors about the situation. They
seemed much less alarmed then I was, informing me that this happens all the
time and blaming the goat’s owners for not keeping better track of their animals.
Neighbor after neighbor told me that unless I could find a legendary old,
drunken man who wanders the town and has been known to get goats out of
latrines in the past, the only option was to leave it. However, this was
definitely not an option in my book. The thought of having to take care of my
daily “bathroom” business on top of a slowly dying adolescent goat was not only
unthinkable for me, but sent me into a panic-driven frenzy to rescue the goat.
I went back to my house, looking out for the old drunken wanderer, but he hadn't been seen for months, so that option was basically out. When I got home,
I put on my headlamp, cut down my clothes line to make a lasso, and headed back
out to the latrine. Shining my headlamp into the dark, feces-filled abyss, I
could make out the goat. I secured my headlamp even tighter to insure it too
was not claimed by the pit, and lowered the clothes-line lasso into the depths.
The smell was appalling. As I tried to get the lasso around the goat’s body, it
retreated into the corner, into the space under the floor of the latrine, where
I could no longer see it. I handed over the lasso to the neighbor and went to a
nearby tree to pick some leaves, a favorite goat snack. Throwing the leaves
into the pit in an attempt to lure the frightened animal back in to our sight,
I couldn’t help feeling incredibly sorry for this poor creature. What a
predicament! A few of my students who
had come by to see what I was doing tried to help by making goat calls, trying
to get the animal out of hiding. After several unsuccessful attempts to fish
the goat out with my make-shift lasso, we had attracted a substantial crowd of
onlookers, who once again advised me not to worry and to just leave the goat. I
was getting frustrated. There was no way I was leaving a goat to die in my
latrine. I mean it already smells bad enough and what an awful, AWFUL, AWFULLL
way to die! No animal should have to suffer like that. I was beginning to panic
due to everyone else’s lack of motivation, and my thoughts were racing. Was
there any way for me to fit through the hole, climb down, and get the goat? I
could take a really long bucket bath after. Could the goat be coaxed to climb
into a bucket if I lowered one down?
Could we dig a tunnel through the side of the pit to retrieve the little
guy? WHAT IF I HAVE TO POOP ON TOP OF A DYING GOAT EVERYDAY!???? AHHHHH…I think
I would go home if that was the case. So
in a last attempt to inspire motivation and get the on-looking kids on board
with the rescue, I offered 100 meticais (all the money I had in my pocket) to
the first one to rescue the goat. 100 mets is about $3, but was a small fortune
to the neighborhood kids. Immediately
they sprang into action. Goat rescuing contraptions began to materialize out of
every possible resource. There were harnesses made of twine and attached to
long sticks, a similar invention made of plastic bags, various ropes and cords,
and even some offers to climb into the latrine. I refused to let any children
climb down the hole…a goat stuck in the latrine was one thing, but I definitely
did not want to responsible for getting a kid trapped in there. After a few hours of attempts, altering the
contraptions, re-coaxing the goat back into sight, and confused looks from
passing adults, the winning contraption came into being. Two of my students
made a lasso-like attachment out of yucca leaves and connected it to a long
stick. I handed over my headlamp and wished them luck. They spent the next half
hour or so trying to capture the goat. I was just about to give up on them when
I heard a commotion inside the latrine. I had a sudden fear that they had
dropped my headlamp in the ominous pit, but realized almost immediately that
they were cries of victory, and the goat cries were definitely less muffled!
Just then, the goat came storming around the corner of the latrine, flustered
and very dirty and followed by the victorious goat-rescuers. I quickly snapped
a picture of the group and asked them not to release the goat until I gave it a
bath. So, after having a few buckets of water dumped on him and a heartwarming
reunion with his mother, the little guy’s nightmare was over, two of my
students became the richest kids around, and I when nature calls, I can use my
goat-free latrine once again. Although a stressful incident at the time, the
goat rescue brought me closer to many of my students, taught the onlookers that
not everybody thinks it’s ok to leave goats to die in latrines, and was
actually pretty entertaining in hindsight.
You’ll be pleased to know that I
have since reinforced my goat-guarding mechanisms and have redesigned the
latrine lid to be heavier and not easily pushed aside by a stumbling baby goat.
Thanks for reading everybody and much
love to you all! Until the next adventure!
 |
| The Goat Rescue Crew in front of the culprit latrine |
No comments:
Post a Comment