Immediately after I posted my last blog entry (about meeting my host family), this happened…
To set the scene, it was around 11:30 p.m. creeping around midnight. Justin urgently wanted to go to the restroom and I figured I might as well go too. He couldn’t find his headlamp/flashlight or his boots fast enough, so I told him I’ll just go ahead and see him in a few minutes.
Headlamp/flashlight and boots, you ask? Yes, because “going to the restroom” is a 5-minute adventure down the stairs, into an unpaved gravel “road” around the house, into a wooden shed, with a concrete hole in the middle that functions as our “toilet.” Our Outhouse also shares a wall with four large pigs and it is right across the chicken coup. Since it was raining on and off that day and there is no lighting, this is where the boots and headlamp/flashlight come into play. Silver lining, there is one less step because there is no flushing.
Baby wipes in one hand, flashlight in the other, I walk downstairs. I find all the adults outside in bath robes and coats looking distressed. Even though this is only my third night, I knew this was not routine. I see the women walking in and out of the pigs’ den and the men speaking loudly inside with a screaming pig. The invite me inside the pigs’ den. Turns out, the fattest big pig of them all just delivered 9 piglets! The host grandmother starts making an eating/attacking non-verbal expression. Now, I’m just horribly confused.
My host sister (the young mother of the family), knew I had a flashlight, so she takes me to the wheelbarrow located right by the outhouse by the garden. She has me point to the wheelbarrow. You know what I see? I see 3 half-eaten, half-alive piglets!!! Half their body is literally eaten- a scene right out of a horror film. I thought they would be dead, but nope, they were heaving heavily as they were taking their last breath. The mother pig delivered her piglets and then tried to EAT THEM ALL AND BURY THEM.
The host grandfather was still in the den attempting to dig out the rest of the 6 piglets underneath the mother pig’s poop as she dug them there alive half-eaten. I was just literally standing there shocked, helpless, and speechless.
Clearly the family was upset, most likely because they just lost a valuable source of income and clearly energy and time for raising the cannibal mother pig. I, on the hand, never knew pigs do that! So I walk upstairs with my eyes wide open, disturbed.
For the 20 minutes I was down there, Justin did not even come down. He was supposed to come down right after me! After I managed to tell him the story, I don’t think he was ever more grateful for holding it in and waiting. Oh, and he laughed out loud at my expense.