Saturday was going to be a quiet day in Cyanika. We had just finished a lazy breakfast of ryvita biscuits and tomatoes, when Phocas arrived with the news that la vache de l'ecole est tombée dans la toilette. This we had to see. A small crowd had already gathered and were looking sadly into what looked like a big hole but was actually a disused pit latrine, where the errant cow lay dead. These were toilets which belonged to an annex of the school which was abandoned some time ago and were totally overgrown and hidden from the poor unsuspecting animal, so in she went, 6 foot drop and lights out cow.
NOW the problem is how to extract 100 kilos of dead, prime Rwandan beef from a 6 foot hole with no technical help?(remember no electricity here!)
Eventually, after at least 100 people were consulted, it was decided to dig a tunnel into the pit and drag the carcass out. WOW it worked.
There were several weddings going on in the village that day and these go on for several hours. By the time the cow had been extracted, many of the wedding guests had escaped from the church and were finding the cow more interesting;
next problem what to do with the meat - no way of preserving it, it had to be chopped up and cooked straight away - boiled! The last laugh was on us - on sunday we were presented with a bucket of boiled beef! John tried a few strands and then we gave it along with an onion and a cabbage to our very poor neighbour and her very large family.
The pupils told me that the meat was disgusting because it was so badly cooked.
John has found a new and very pleasant way of going down the mountain - on the back of a bicycle! of course you have to walk up the odd hill but generally very relaxing.
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