Survival Night 2

So Lucas and John had such a good time out in the bush, our friend Sadie and I wanted to tag along for the next trip. We made plans to meet in

a central village, Khudumelapye. We were headed to Sorilatholo where John
is a volunteer. The village is so small it’s not even considered a village;
more like a glorified cattle post. Needless to say you can’t be picky when
hitch hiking to Sorilatholo. The first available ride turns out to be a
Chabuku truck. I think we have told you about Chabuku before. It is the
traditionally brewed “beer” here. It’s made from sorghum; it’s white and
chunky; and it’s really popular here because it’s cheap: about 5 pula for a
litre which comes out to less than a dollar. Anyway, the drivers stacked
their Chabuku carts to make room for all four of us and our gear. The truck
drove from village to village and paused at the cattle posts so men could
run out and buy alcohol. We were almost to Sorilatholo when the truck hit a
sand bank and 10 crates of Chabuku went flying off the top of the truck.
They stopped the truck and we tried saving as many cartons as possible. We
managed to collect 4 crates out of 10. The cartons were opened and caked in
sand but apparently still sellable…?
Last minute we decided we would buy a chicken, slaughter and cook
it while we spent the night out in the bush. John made the necessary calls
to get a hold of one the next day. We left in the morning to hike to the
spot John and Lucas camped before. There were still traces of their old
shelter. It wasn’t quite as far into the bush as Sadie and I thought.
People in John’s village had told him he would be eaten by lions if he
spent the night in bush. There was no way lions would come this close to
the village.
Anyway, Sadie and I started putting things together to build out
own shelter. Not long after, John got a call that the chicken was “ready.”
I offered to go back to the village with him. We went to pick it up and
brought it back to the “camp site.” We took turns holding it, swapping it
back and forth. Every time we traded it off, it got inspired to escape. We
weren’t worried because its legs were tied together. The one time we
dropped it, it walked right out of the tie. I couldn’t believe it; we’d had
this chicken less than half hour and it was gonna get away. We circled it
and caught it. I made sure to tie its legs up nice and tight.
We got to camp and decided we had better kill the chicken before
too long. If we got to know it too well, we weren’t gonna want to kill it.
I went to get the chicken and it hopped up on its legs, which were tied
together, and hopped into a thorn bush. By the time I got it out, I was so
ready to kill it. We took it a ways from camp so that the scraps didn’t
attract animals. Lucas and John studied on the best ways to kill a chicken.
They decided the best way was to hypnotize it first then to break its neck.
It seemed to be hypnotized pretty good. So good in fact we couldn’t tell if
it was dead or not. John broke its neck, decided it wasn’t dead so put a
knife through its brain. Unfortunately it wasn’t until they started cutting
off its head that we realized it was still alive. So for our first try, we
didn’t do such a great job giving the chicken a fast and painless death.
But maybe next time…
After the kill, Lucas, John, and I went after pulling the feathers
out. The people here pour boiling water over the chicken to get the
feathers off. Since we were out in the bush, there was a limited amount of
water. Once the feathers were out, I volunteered to take out the guts. We
let him hang up-side-down to let the blood drain out. Cleaning out the
insides is surprisingly easy. They just pull right out. There was very
little blood. It didn’t start stinking until I got to the intestines. One
time, I watched our neighbor clean out the intestines of a chicken to be
cooked later. They keep all insides but the lungs from what I could tell;
they eat the feet, head, intestines, stomach, kidneys, and the heart. We
were not so brave (Lucas and I ate chicken intestines with our host family;
we are not fans). So lots of parts were left behind. But we got what we
needed. By that time the chicken was becoming more familiar territory. The
boys took the carcass back to John’s place to clean it and season it.

Sadie and I finished building the girl’s shelter. It was
considerably bigger than the boy’s shelter. But it didn’t much matter
because I use the word shelter very loosely here: neither shelter could
shield us from rain or bugs. It was more for state of mind and bragging
rights.
The boys returned with the chicken; cleaned, seasoned, and stuffed
with apples. Lucas and John built a make-shift rotisserie for the chicken
so that it could be cooked over an open fire. Sadie was interested in
learning to build a matchless fire so Lucas went about teaching her using
magnesium and flint. As a side dish we threw 4 hobo dinners into the fire.
As the sun started setting, the bugs came out. We saw beetles,
spiders, scorpions, giant millipedes, and big black bugs that spray poison
in your eyes and blind you. Some beetles would kamikaze right into your
chest. All of us but Lucas were rethinking staying out in the bush all
night. To make us feel better, Lucas dug a moat all around the shelters so
that bugs would fall in and be unable to crawl out. Like the shelters, it
was just for state of mind; it didn’t actually work.
After eating our delicious chicken and hobo dinners, we snuggled
into bed. Sadie opted not to sleep in a sleeping bag but rather slept
covered head to toe in shoes, gaiters, rain pants, rain coat, and
sunglasses. It was hard for us to go to sleep because we didn’t want to
think about what was crawling all around us. At about 2am we fell asleep.
Three hours later we woke to a thunderstorm and decided we had all the bush
experience we needed and packed up. Next time we’ll take a bushman with us
= )