Ndili Nkuku

For five weeks, I haven’t slept in the same place for more than a week, sometimes less than two nights at a time. Tonight I find myself underneath a mosquito net of a very comfortable twin bed with a beautiful maroon and gold comforter. Tonight I find myself in my home for the next ten months. I’m here to stay. Finally.

I can easily leap from my front step to the landing outside the doors of all the classrooms of my school. So needless to say, when I arrived during break time at school I was welcomed with throngs of children, many my own students as of this Monday. I am ready for this more permanent move, but it was still nerve-wracking to say goodbye to my support network of this past month. I kept my emotions at bay, but the next thing I knew my host father told me that my sister wanted to see me in the next room. I drew back the curtain to the workroom and found my sister, Precious, kneeling on newspaper, taking a knife to chicken. Its literally feathered friends lay on the ground around her. Aunt Ruth sat next to her plucking out feathers.

I sat on a stool and observed for a bit. The moment brought me back to an episode in my Nyanja language class the previous week. Our teacher was explaining that Nyanja does not have a verb, “to have.” Instead, one must say, “I am with.” The teacher’s example was “Ndili ndi Nkuku,” literally translated as “I am with chicken,” but which actually means, “I have chicken.” For a brief moment I had incorrectly translated, “Ndili” (I am), as “I have.” So I thought to myself, “Why would you say ‘I have with chicken.’” I then proceeded to raise my hand and ask the teacher, “Why can’t you say, ‘Ndili Nkuku’?” I didn’t register the smirk on the teacher’s face at first. Then it hit me; I had just proudly declared to my Nyanja teacher and the world, “I am a chicken.”

Then here I was a week later with chickens lying all around me. Some with feathers, others with their feathers floating in silver metal bowls with water sitting next to them. I didn’t know what to think. Should I worry about the sanitation of the area? Was I feeling disgusted by the severed head of the chicken hanging from tendrils of its neck? Was this the moment I became a vegetarian?

I decided not to answer those questions and just sit, watching the women work. I watched Aunt Ruth pluck a whole chicken and when she turned to the next one, I plucked up (no pun intended) to offer my help. She handed me the carcass and I felt the weight of its body. I pulled at the feathers, and I was surprised at how easily they came off. Pretty soon I found myself praying. “Thank you, God, for this chicken. For the life it had….for that life that I can feel in my hands as I feel its weight…as I can still feel the workings of its muscles. This chicken is a gift.”

That chicken was another reality check. This is what I eat and have eaten so many times. Most Americans don’t like to think about where their food comes from. Whether you eat plants or animals, we eat other life, and we should be thankful for it. I took that chicken by the legs and started plucking because it was an act of solidarity with my new family. This is how they prepare food. This is my family now. Am I going to back away from this reality? Or am I going to join in?