enlightenment from a chicken

About 2 weeks ago, I moved into my hut and my new village. My village is right next to a banana plantation which is absolutely gorgeous and it is relatively easy to get from place to place which is a huge bonus. My new host family is awesome and my hut is in the village chief's compound so it is nice and private. The first couple of days I introduced myself to the neighbors and such and tried to explain why I am here and what I will be doing. I am currently at the regional house but will be heading back to village on Tuesday morning to hopefully begin a couple projects. As I type this I am trying to upload pictures of my hut, so check back on my picasa page for new pictures in the next couple days! There isnt much else to tell-- im doing all the things you do when you move to a new home- nesting, unpacking, getting to know the neighbors.... i will have more exciting things to talk about once i come back from in-service training and start my baseline survey.

now for a glimpse into what i was doing last sunday:
when i went out to introduce myself, someone graciously gave me a chicken as a welcoming present. chickens are expensive and for special occassions so this was a really nice gift. so i decided i would fully commit to this whole "integration" thing and help my host cousin cook the chicken. first, the chicken was killed (by a man of course-- killing chicken is not a womans job. typical, but i would rather have killed it than cooked it had i known what fresh hell awaited me in the cooking process. and this is coming from a vegetarian.) after the chicken was dead, we de-feathered it. not that bad. then we tore the chicken apart (literally). my cousin handed me the legs while she cut that bad boy to bits. then she took the insides out. i held it together until she cut open the stomach and the chicken's breakfast fell out onto the floor. yum. then she stuck the feet through the beak and from what i gathered, this is supposed to be the best part. so after it cooked we ate it and i kept saying "no no its a gift for you! i want you to eat the delicious chicken head! i know how much you love it." so if there was any doubt that i had lost my sense of humor, never fear because a chicken reminded me you should never take yourself too seriously.