Killing for class and eating

I warn everyone reading this that I'm about to be fairly graphic, so if you don't want to hear about it, don't keep reading.

We just killed a goat a few hours ago. I saw the life of a goat taken as its legs were tied up, as two men held it down, as a third sawed at its throat with a knife. I saw the red blood sit poetically splattered on green leaves and grass. I heard one faint bleat, watched it struggle, and slowly stop moving. I saw after moments of stillness, its legs begin to curl and stretch, and the body to convulse, to shake--a reaction of the nervous system. When it stopped moving, we began to cut.

We were killing this goat mainly so that we could examine the contents of its stomach, in order to truly understand what rumination was, how it worked, and why it has proven to be such a successful adaptation for grazers. We were killing this goat, examining the contents of its body, and then we were going to eat it.

The skinning began. The askaris (guards of our camp, they are basically super-Maasai) moved about deftly with their knives, starting at joints on the legs and under the shoulders. They gently tapped along the skin membranes to separate the layer of fur from the coveted innards. One by one, students moved forward to try their hand at skinning.

Would I try? I didn't want to touch the goat, and I had had difficulty watching the killing itself as well as the skinning, but I wanted to be able to say that I had done it. All in.

I tried my hand at it. Pulling the already dislocated skin away from the meat with one hand, I tapped at the seams of pelt and tissue with the knife, carefully bending my wrist repeatedly like the nodding of a head. I worked around the stomach, peeling the skin closer towards the spine, and along a leg. The white, thin connective tissue easily gave way to my knife, while the pinkish-yellow muscle required a more persuasive force.

Later, I held a cut-off hoof. It was still very warm, and I couldn't bear to hold it. I tried to get rid of it as quickly as possible, eventually just throwing it on the ground.

I watched as the askaris cut open the abdomen, blood pooled inside, as they removed the organs. the stomach expanded and expanded. The intestines spilled out. The smell. I forced myself to watch.

They passed around the heart and lungs. I touched them, did not hold them, got blood on my hands. I held the liver, which was still warm, but not covered in blood. I watched them go through and open the four chambers of the stomach, seeing and understanding all that we had studied about rumination.

And then, we went to the fire pit and roasted the pieces. The guys in the group ate the testicles (the Maasai believe it gives them strength); the females were not allowed to do so. I do not like the taste of goat, though I definitely prefer the liver to the regular muscle-meat.

I had never seen a life taken from so close up before. I had never so directly seen where my meat comes from before. I'm glad that I made myself watch, touch, and taste.