The Chickens of Tshikapa

DRC: 260 chickens, ducks die of suspected avian flu


Photo: FAO

I have not been eating meat since I arrived in my new city and started my new job in January. I have always been an opportunistic vegetarian, for health and political and environmental reasons.

When in the field, though, it has never been a question: Do as the Romans do. A philosophy that goes a long way, trust me. If you will partake of somebody's food and drink, you have paved the way to friendship and loyalty, or at least established a relationship in which you can say, "If you scratch my back, I'll scrach yours" and it usually works.

But the article above, in which it is stated that testing to confirm avian flu among the chickens of Tshikapa was difficult due to the fact that most of them were eaten, is cause for pause.

In anticipation of my next trip back to Kinshasa for work, I imagined getting everyone together and taking the drive, down the Blvd 30 juin, hanging a left at the big bird sculpture onto Ave 24 Novembre, and continuing for some kilometers into the Cite, away from downtown and through a huge rond point (rotary), bumping over crater-sized potholes, hoping to scrape nothing important off the bottom of the vehicle, veering over to the right because suddenly the road is two lanes separated by an island and you don't want to end up on the left side except in a flood, hang a left where half of the other cars on the road are turning, go up a city block's length peering in the dark till we see the barely visible yellow and red SKOL beer advertisement painted on the side of a building, turning very carefully on the road just before this building, over a couple of stone planks that cover the drainage ditch, down a dirt side street barely large enough for the oversized LandCruiser, into the back where our friends the uniformed guards will direct us into parking, and jumping down from the shock-free seats, making our way into the walled-off patio with awkwardly-proportioned metal chairs and tables (leaving no space to cross my legs), lounging back and waiting for SKOL and PRIMUS to be ferried out, immediately ordering 3 sides of frites and three sides of bananes and four butterflied chickens for which we will have to wait for an hour and that everyone will rip into with our fingers as if we never had better training, dipping pieces in mayo and dragging through pili-pili, washing down with more beer, waiting for the four musicians to come by and sing our favorite songs, working our names into their performance, after which we will put 100Fc and 200Fc bills in their guitar and on their foreheads the way New Orleanians pin dollar bills to the shirts of kids on their birthdays.



Top: Skol beer label; Left: Frites and makemba; Right: Mama Colonel's chicken

But now the chickens of Tshikapa are dying.