While I
was staying in Gondar I found a new tourist hotel that gave me a cheap price
for a pretty nice room… I was the only foreign tourist staying there and almost
the only guest at all… It was pretty quiet except for the constant bleeting of
a sheep that they kept in the courtyard area… where the motorbike was parked.
Actually the bleeting became quite annoying since the sheep in question had a
particularly penetrating and loud voice and the hotel halls and rooms were all
tiled and had no soft furnishings or features to absorb noise. But after a few
hours of evening annoyance, the animal quietened down for the night and I did
get some sleep.
I assumed
that the sheep was a more or less normal fixture in the place and that it was
probably there to eat green waste from the kitchen and eventually would find
its way onto the house table… as most sheep do one way or another.
And the
next morning before the sun was even up the sheep fired up just like a rooster
and that was the end of sleep… Not really a problem since I was going to head
off early today anyway. I got up and wandered out into the town streets to seek
out a coffee source J
And after
coffee I headed back to the hotel to pack the bike and leave. And I noticed as
I walked upstairs that the sheep was now silent and assumed that it was being
fed or otherwise pacified. But when I took my first load of luggage out to the
bike I found the cause was somewhat other! And that my initial diagnosis of the
sheeps purpose was quite accurate!
Warning…
graphic violence below! J
Yes, the
sheep was headed for the dinner table in the shorter rather than longer term!
Note, I
am a meat eater and I have no problem with the sheep being treated this way… It
was a healthy animal and had been more or less treated reasonably well (not
starved or beaten or otherwise abused). I have quite a few friends who also eat
meat but who cant stand the thought or sight of animals being prepared for
their tables!... I find this to be completely hypocritical behaviour and I have
no respect for their delicate sensibilities on this front… If you are prepared
to eat it then you should damn well be prepared to see the animals killed and
if need be do it your self!
I also
have some friends who are vegetarians and I respect that and I understand that
pictures of animals being killed and prepared for table are distressing to them…
they at least are not being hypocrites.
When I
was a kid growing up, we would pretty frequently kill a sheep or a cow and
often chickens… And the butchering and cleaning were all done by my mum and dad…
It was the way things were done back in the 60s and 70s in Australia. I guess
things have changed but I still say people who want to eat meat should be
prepared to do the deed and if not actually kill the animals they eat then they
should not be squeamish about seeing it done!
punching off the skin.
Breaking the animal up into smaller cuts.
