Slaughter House Blues

Yes, this title is a weak link to the author Tom Sharpe’s comedy novel regarding life on an Oxbridge campus. His reference is relevant only because I cannot more strongly recommend his satire on apartheid South Africa called ‘Riotous Assembly’; hands down the funniest book I have ever read. For further proof ask Gilly about the strange looks he got while reading it in a Black Hawk flying over Afghanistan. The rest of this entry does, however, involve a slaughter house and thus those with a weak stomach, or a desire not to hear about animal butchery please skip to the end. This ‘aint pretty.

A reasonable opening question if I was recounting this in a pub over a warm ale (yes I am desperately craving just that) would be ‘James and Heidi, why did you go to the slaughter house anyway?’ The answer would be simple- to get animal bits for practical sessions with the doctors we are teaching- better to learn on an animal corpse (or piece thereof) than on a living human, no? The aim of this trip was to get some goat legs to teach fasciotomies (a surgical procedure to relieve pressure in some tissues), larynx’s and tracheas to teach surgical airways and rib cages to teach trauma chest drains. In summary: many goat bits. The plan was simple, the abattoir is round the corner from the camp so we were to go there with a friend in the early morning and get the necessary from source before the useful parts were gone. Nothing prepared me for the feral horror that we were walking in too.

Granted, I should qualify this update with the confession that I have never personally visited a slaughter house in England and my only knowledge of the process has been from watching the celebrity chef’s Jamie Oliver and Hugh Fearnely-Whittingstall (one of my cooking hero’s) advocating happy animals (my phraseology). I am sure that a British facility is no Teddy bear’s Picnic.

It was a cool morning. The sun was only just peering over the trees lining the East side of the Nile and the sky was turning from a pale purple to the washed out blue of the morning. The deep filled river flowed like black tar in the half-light. The drive to the facility was short, but we were advised not to walk; in fact the driver Steve (from Uganda) would not leave his car unattended and stayed with it while we went in.

A community had built up down the dirt road that led to the slaughterhouse and even at this time men were sitting smoking pipes and skinny children dashed around in the mud and women fried dough balls in boiling oil over charcoal burners, sitting on up-turned oil drums. The usual cries of surprise rang out as white people emerged from the car in this unusual part of town. We headed through the open iron gates, rimmed with spikes and into the concrete compound. We were greeted by a group of topless men each carrying a handful of very sharp knives. One looked at me and pointed with a blade to my chest- ‘you just be careful’- he said, his eyes pointing at me, but looking through me as though talking to someone behind.

The smell was overwhelming- animal excrement. It was time to breath through the mouth alone, though this was hardly enough to stop the choking sensation, despite being out in the open air. I skidded on the packed mud floor, though the rain had held off for a few days. Strange, I thought (as an arrogant rugby man I had always thought my balance was pretty good and one day I would be in the final of ‘Strictly’), and I looked down to eyeball the cause- allow me to elaborate. We can all remember being teenagers, leaving our bedrooms in a tip, clothes and music cassettes strewn over the floor: but imagine for a second that you are not in a room, but in a concrete abattoir, and imagine that instead of clothes on the floor there is a thick covering of fresh and clotted blood and faeces. Clear? Now prick up your ears. In your bedroom you may have the hi-fi on perhaps, for arguments sake, playing a little Nirvana ‘Smells like teen spirit’ louder than you need, and loud enough that you can’t hear your Mum shouting for you to turn it down; in the slaughterhouse we can replace those sultry guitar riffs for screams and bleats of the living meat as it is carried over the shoulder of the muscled staff member, flung on to the ground and the before you could say ‘abracadabra’ the throat was slit and surrounding staff stepped back to avoid the arterial spray. Others seemed very unconcerned about avoiding it however, explaining why a huge proportion of the staff were stained from head to toe in dripping blood. Some of the goat corpses, now headless were straddled by their slayer and with a huge stick the body was beaten like a drum, the wood echoing off the swollen abdomen. Two or three would strike up and soon the beat was joined by the singing voices of the other men chanting Mundari songs. Not the strained voice of Kurt Cobain but stirring none-the-less.

A closer look at the floor revealed piles of cow hoofs (I imagine destined for the soup we had the other week), piles of horns, piles of heads, you get the picture. Under the one roofed section the fresh carcases were hung up, skinned and gutted and in a concrete pit a hose ran constantly as the gut was washed, cleaning it for the stew. A knife was pointed at me as I asked if I could take a picture. I took that as a no.

Heidi was securing a deal for the goat throats, I was astonished to hear as I wandered back that she was actually haggling over the price- the request had been ridiculous and bartering is expected but I would have paid anything to bail out ASAP. More knife wielding men stood uncomfortably close looking at the side of my head while I fixed my eyes forward. Some laughed at some unsaid joke; or maybe we were the joke, I wasn’t sure.

Deal done, we turn and skidded over the soup beneath us, bag-of-bits in hand. I turned to get one more look of the place as we left. A new goat was flung on the ground but this one was not slaughtered immediately. Instead, as it lay in the mud the man straddling it took his knife and slit the artery at the back of its leg, cupped his hands over the wound and drank straight from the pumping vessel. The chanting had become deafening and the rhythmic beat of the goat corpse drum almost hypnotising. The thirsty man looked up from the beast and stared straight back at me grinning, his once white teeth stained red by the fresh claret, much of it still dripping off his chin. And you know what, I knew why he was smiling: he knew how proud we are of eating anything, however weird, and it was like he was mocking me- think you’ve done it all? No way, try this brother, his eyes said. No thanks I thought. Beaten. Hence the blues.