The Eighty First Story

Sitting in this spot, the reality of where we were really started to sink in (for me, my mother is a little quicker on the uptake, I think). We arrived in town by mid afternoon, and the very first thing Mamadu did was to order us food (We had already learned to order food at least three hours before getting hungry). He asked us if we wanted meat or no meat. Mum and I looked at each other, shrugged a little and asked for meat. He shouted something to a little boy, and we wandered around the rest of the day, only later realizing that the child had gone to catch the town's one goat.

Now- I'm quite certain we paid more than enough to replace that goat. It's not that I feel bad about it, per se. It's just- what if some other travelers came through the next night, and the townfolk had not yet gotten a new goat and had to explain this? Or maybe that's what happened- maybe this place usually had a goat on hand, it had recently been consumed, and when we surprised them by ALSO asking for meat, they had to scramble, and as luck would have it, someone else had a goat. But what if that emergency goat already had plans? What if it was meant for a particular feast, and now there was no goat? What if someone had to get married with no meat dinner? What if someone had already started to prepare it for a sacrifice and had to start all over?

In short- I spent the night thinking about how, in a place with very few travelers, one set could really fuck things up if they wanted to. We didn't order meat again till Timbuktoo.