by Ning Cai
But for now, we had something more urgent to do.
“I brought along the pee thing,” I told Ning, fishing out a purple rubber funnel, which shall henceforth be referred to at the Purple Pee Thing (PPT).
Shaan Moledina, my colleague and senior writer at Vanilla magazine, had passed the PPT to me after reviewing it for our travel page. She had no use for it and thought that I might. After lugging it around for six months, the moment had arrived to test it out.
I took the purple penis out of my backpack as discretely as I could and stuffed it into my shallow harem pants pocket. The purple funnel stuck out like a sore thumb but I figured that the guys were too busy to notice anyway.
These three days in the wild had made me question the wisdom of God. Why did He create us with the need to excrete? As God, couldn’t He just wave His hand and do away with this inconvenience? Such a waste of time and money for the world.
I slid off my harem pants completely, lest the PPT didn’t work as planned. I stood there in my panties for moment, turning the purple contraption around to figure out what went where. Well, I guess the only way to do it was to do it! I inhaled nervously and pulled down my panties, fitting the purple funnel down there and adjusting it a little. It’s made of rubber so it’s supposed to conform to the contours...
But even before I summoned up the courage to release my pee, I had a bad feeling about this. How could it possibly capture and channel all my urine? It felt like using a spoon to catch a waterfall!
Well, moment of truth...
NING
Pam had a look of grim determination as we marched out of our shared tent. I stole a glance at the purple contraption sticking partway out of her shallow pocket, marketed as a handy travel tool to help women pee standing up. I grinned wickedly.
“Hey Pam, can I film it? Seriously!” I laughed as we trudged towards the bushes, the loose end of our shared roll of toilet paper in my hand blowing like a kite’s tail in the Malagasy wind. “We’d get plenty of views online when it’s on YouTube. Our video could go viral, think about it! Your kids can tell their friends that their mum’s an Internet star.”
Pam glared at me with hooded eyes.
“No! This is the journalist in me trying this out for herself!” Pam huffed as we found a spot safely obscured by bushes and she took the roll of toilet paper from me. I turned away and played lookout as the BFF loosened the drawstrings of her harem pants. A colourful bug flew really close to me and I swatted it away, paranoid about being stung.
“How’s it going, babe? Purple phallus thing working?” I hollered over my shoulder as I kept watch. The boatmen and our guides were busy preparing our meal, and I knew they’d grant us our privacy, but we never knew who or what else might surprise us with our pants down.
The BFF sounded like she was having some difficulty and I sniggered, until I heard a yell of distress right about the same time the distinct sound of a fountain of gushing pee hit the dry sand...
“Fuck! FUCK!!!” Pam wailed. Not a good sign. “OH FUCK!!!!”
I turned around and froze, unsure how to help or what to say. An awkward moment passed. I cleared my throat apologetically as the BFF crouched down at a strange angle, the now-abandoned PPT lying on the floor near her wet flip-flops. I grimaced. “Uhm well, at least you tried?”
“FUCK!!!” The pint-sized BFF shrieked again. Pam had wet her undies, but all in good faith in testing out the PPT. I helped to tear generous amounts of toilet paper for the distressed woman, trying hard to keep a straight face as she ranted about getting the angle wrong.
“You deserve a medal, Pam, for being such a brave journalist,” I grinned as I stood on a dry spot near the furious BFF and passed her another bunch of wipes.
“FUCK!!!!!!”
PAM
Perhaps the diagram was wrong, perhaps I put it a little too high... but my warm yellow urine trickled down my hands and onto my panties stretched halfway down my legs.
“Oh fuck! Oh fuck!” I swore under my breath.
The BFF, who was playing sentinel, stifled a giggle as she saw me fling the PPT onto the sand and hop out of my soaked panties.
Yes, the BFF has seen everything. When you travel the world together for nine months, there is pretty much nothing you don’t know about each other. By the time we left Madagascar after not bathing or brushing our teeth for four days, we could pee and poop side by side, fart loudly, smell each other’s poop, and still hold a casual conversation while we were at it.
“I’m going to throw this fucking thing away!” I fumed, as the amused BFF handed me wads of toilet paper to dab myself dry. “You’d better appreciate what I’m doing for our book, OK!”
“I do, I do...” she patted me sympathetically, a smirk tugging at the corner of her lips. “Don’t throw it away. I’m sure it will work if you practise. Just give it another try!”
Another try?! Next time, BFF, you try!
Heading to the bush with the wretched Purple Pee Thing!
* * *
Did I mention that there were two live chickens with us on the boat?
They had been travelling with us since Day One. Poor things, whenever we landed in a new area and the boatmen carried them down, they looked as if they were unwilling participants of a three-legged race. It was cruel, but their legs were tied together so that they could not escape. Can you blame us? We didn’t want our dinner to run away.
In fact, one of the chickens tried to cross over to another boat one day, but lost its balance and flopped face-down while the other looked on. They couldn’t move very much or very fast; my heart did go out to them. I had actually grown quite fond of them, but I knew that their days were numbered. I wondered if they thought they were on a vacation.
Today was our last night in the river. So I knew that this would be the night of the big chicken slaughter. While we were sad, and scared, we both didn’t want to miss the culling. We were two city girls stranded in the middle of nowhere, with no Wi-Fi, phone reception or electricity. The boatman was just about to kill two live chickens with a knife. Out here in the Tsiribihina River, it was like watching the World Cup finals.
“Let’s go!” Ning exclaimed as we kicked sand over our pee and poop. She grabbed me by the hand and we scampered back to the campsite.
Just in time!
The boatman had dug a shallow hole in the sand, and was bringing the chickens over. On the sand lay a long, sharp knife. Looking at the blade, I could almost feel it slicing cleanly through the fine layer of my skin... oh, the pain of even a small cut! I grimaced.
The tall, dark-skinned boatman could not speak a word of English, so there was no way he could explain anything to us. But it was something the Malagasy people did everyday, in the grim reality of their lives. The culling was not a staged demonstration, and if we hadn’t returned in time from our poop fest, he would have just gone ahead and killed the chickens anyway, and we would’ve been none the wiser.
The boatman squatted beside the hole. He glanced up briefly at us as we held our camera and phone, poised to take pictures, and an amused smile escaped his lips. Nonchalantly, he picked up one of the chickens with his left hand and brought it closer to him. With his bare fingers, he started plucking out the feathers on its neck, letting them drop onto the sand in a messy heap of black and brown.
I watched as a bare pinkish patch emerged on its neck. The chicken was surprisingly calm, even though it was being held down by the man’s big hands. Maybe this chicken murderer had a calming effect on poultry? The result of years of culling? In any case, the chicken did not even flinch when he picked up the knife from the sand and placed it near its neck. I guess it didn’t have prior experience of such and so didn’t sense the imminent danger. I don’t suppose chickens possess observation learning, either.
In one swift motion, the boatman sliced the throat of the chicken and bright red blood spurted out from its neck onto the white sand. I flinched as I documented this from behind the camera. I don’t think I could
have watched this with my bare eyes, standing so near. Somehow, being behind the camera made me feel more detached from the killing. It acted as a physical and psychological barrier. Maybe that’s how war correspondents deal with capturing atrocities of war?
“Oh... my... God...” I uttered in despair, looking at the chicken flailing around as blood continued to drip from its sliced arteries. My hands were shaking.
The BFF looked pale. There are very few things that disconcert this daredevil magician. Bugs being one. A dying chicken being another. And then clowns. But that’s a whole other story.
This was one of those things that made me want to squeeze my eyes tight shut, yet so compelling that I had to keep them open throughout. It was heart-wrenching to see Life being drained slowly out of a living creature.
Before we could get used to this gory image, the boatman took the chicken’s neck in both hands and snapped it, breaking it into two. I could see its broken, jagged trachea under the feathers as its head dropped to the side, dangling at an unnatural angle. Even so, the chicken’s wings were still flapping and its feet kicking in protest.
“Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck...” Ning exclaimed, instinctively moving in nearer to snap photos with her iPhone. Terrifying... yet so compelling.
We were standing there witnessing Death. With each drop of blood dotting the sand, Life was seeping out of that once active and living creature. Its body was getting stiff and its legs were twitching uncontrollably. I realised then that death scenes in the movies and cartoons are actually quite accurate – there really is a twitch of death! And as we stood there in silence watching it die, the boatman picked up the other chicken whose leg was tied to this dying one.
That second chicken had been silent all this while. Was it watching the slaying of its travel companion just as we were? Did it suspect that it was going to be next? Do chickens feel fear? Do they sense impending doom? These were questions that, for the first time, were rolling into my mind in overlapping waves. What are sentient beings? Are cows, pigs, chickens, and all the meat we eat, sentient animals? Can I deal with that knowledge and still eat meat if I knew for certain that they are?
As if in response to my questions, the chicken started to squawk and flap its wings. It seemed visibly agitated when the boatman started to pluck the feathers from its neck.
It was like watching a horror movie, twice. Before we could deal emotionally with the gory image of fresh blood splattering on the ground, and of the slow and painful process of inevitable death, we were subjected to a second round. It wasn’t any easier.
The boatman broke the neck of the second chicken swiftly, then dropped the sharp knife on the sand and rose to his feet. The first step was accomplished. It was so unemotional, so matter of fact, as if he was scooping Milo into a cup and stirring it before serving it to us.
As for Ning and I, we stood transfixed in silence, our heads bowed, our shoulders slumped, our brows furrowed. We felt the need to give the chickens a moment of silence as we watched them become stiff, their claws splayed, paralysed by death.
There was no more Life in them.
It was surreal because just moments ago, they were running a three-legged-race on the sand, pecking the ground for food, trying to keep themselves alive. Oblivious. I retreated into Pensive Pam mode. What is this invisible thing we call Life? One moment it is there, the next it is gone. What exactly fades and disappears? It was very sobering for me.
Silently, we dragged our feet over to our Malagasy guides who were playing on the beach like two schoolboys. Rina was shovelling sand on Lova with his hands, burying him up to the neck.
“How was it?” Lova enquired, aware that we were documenting the death of our dinner.
“It was horrible...” Ning muttered, wrinkling her nose in disdain. “It’s the first time I’ve seen a chicken being killed.”
Lova laughed out loud, evidently amused. “So how are chickens killed in your country?”
I pondered for a moment. “The same way, I think.”
“... But we usually see them all packed and sealed in the supermarket,” the BFF added, blinking absentmindedly.
Our guides guffawed and exchanged some amused comments in Malagasy, then shouted over to the two boatmen who were busy de-feathering the chickens. Everyone laughed. Ning and I felt sheepish.
This world trip was eye-opening in every sense of the word. We saw, for the first time, wild macadamia nuts, green olives, and red apples growing on trees, purple saffron flowers by the roadside – whose stigma is harvested for the most precious spice in India. We saw chickens being culled, cows and camels being hung on hooks in Moroccan marketplaces, and so many other foodstuff we often just see in cans, bottles or frozen packs in Singapore.
That night, we had a candlelight dinner on the beach. Our resourceful boys had sawed a large mineral water bottle in half with a penknife, filled the bottom half with sand, stuck a lit candle into it, and overturned the top half so that the opening was placed over the candle and buried in the sand while the sawn-through portion faced upwards. This acted as a lamp that prevented the strong wind from blowing out the flickering flame.
Ning and I were so impressed that we – separately – sketched a diagram of this invention in our travel journals.
Our resourceful Malagasy boatman made this lamp!
* * *
That night, we were served the best BBQ chicken in the whole of Madagascar. The freshly-culled chickens had been marinated with honey and grilled over an open fire. The sweet smoky aroma that wafted over from the crackling fire made our mouths water and our stomachs growl. When we finally got to eat it, it was the most tender and tasty chicken we’d ever eaten. All our earlier fears and reservations shrivelled into nothing in that instant.
For the icing on the cake, our boatman strode over after our meal with a saucepan in hand and fresh bananas. He peeled four bananas and placed them in the pan, drizzled syrup over them, then filled the pan with rum. In the darkness, under a blanket of stars, a burst of blue and yellow flames illuminated the night as he lit the rum with a lighter.
Banana Flambé, French style, in the middle of the Tsiribihina River in Madagascar. How much more magical could it get?
Madagascar, in its raw wildness, captured us and devoured our hearts. It may be the second-poorest country in the world after Haiti, but the resourcefulness of the Malagasy people, their joyful dispositions and warm hospitality really left a lasting impression on us. Although we did see many lemurs and Balboa trees, Madagascar was nothing like the 2005 DreamWorks movie of the same name. It was so much more.
21
joyeux anniversaire!
Mauritius . October 2011
PAM
“How uncanny!” the BFF had exclaimed on MSN Messenger late one night when, many years ago, we first found out that our birthdays were both in October and just four days apart. “We’re both Librans!”
And ever since we’ve become close friends, we’ve made it a point to celebrate our birthdays together each year. For us busy career girls, the task is usually having to decide which new restaurant in Singapore to try out. But since we were on a world tour, we had the rare privilege of deciding which part of the world to celebrate our birthdays in!
Since we had been roughing it out in wild Madagascar and were en route to India, where we foresaw even more roughing it out, we decided to treat ourselves to a week of pampering somewhere between Madagascar and India. But where?
When we posed this question to our Facebook friends and followers, we had the most pleasant surprise. Our friends from Club Med Singapore offered to host us for our birthday week at one of their resorts in the Indian Ocean!
While we replied very politely, thanking the good people at Club Med for their generous offer, behind the scenes we were clutching each other and jumping around in jubilation. Correction – Ning was doing her happy geek dance.
“How about Maldives?” The BFF rubbed her hands together in glee, her eyes twinkling, as we bent ove
r the world map together.
“Club Med Kani?” My eyes gleamed too. Going to Maldives had been a dream of ours for a long time, an item on both our bucket lists. I traced the world map with my finger, trying to locate the Maldives.
“There it is!” Ning exclaimed, tapping the map triumphantly. For a non-Geography student, she is mighty good at map reading. Or maybe she just has better eyesight than me. “It’s near Sri Lanka. We’ll be meeting your dad in India after that, right?”
“Yup! Perfect! I’ll let Club Med know!” I beamed, immediately logging in to our email at the breakfast table of our B&B in Cape Town, South Africa. For once, we were planning two steps ahead, maybe three.
It was inevitable as we had so many international flights to book on this third trimester of our trip! We were no longer in the cocoon of the U.S. where we were on a road trip, or within Europe where it just took short flights from one EU country to another, with no need for crazy immigration procedures or passport stamps. Now we were out in the big, bad world, crossing international borders every two weeks or so, as we worked our way back to Asia.
But our excitement was short-lived. As luck would have it, our birthdays fell smack in the middle of China’s Golden Week, a period when droves of young, middle-class Chinese yuppies flock to beach resorts all over the planet for their annual dose of decadence. Can you believe Club Med’s Maldives resort was completely booked out?
I have to admit that we were disappointed. There was no way we could push the dates back because we had already made plans to meet my dad in New Delhi on 18 October and were travelling with him for the next three weeks. He had also booked us on a flight to Kashmir the following day.