Monday, May 25, 2009

All Roosters Should Be Killed

written May 25, 2009

My landlord (who happens to live in the house next door) has all of the animals that my house is designed to have - cows, chickens, dogs, cats (well those are the only animals I have seen so far, but who's to say there aren't more). They were initially all generally well-behaved so I didn't have a problem with them. In fact, I didn't even know the cow existed until I went over there the other day for chai and walked into the wrong door and found myself standing face to face with one. This is impressive considering the problems I have already experienced with cows in the past month or so. I met the chickens on the day I moved in, because well, they were wandering around my yard. It was actually slightly disappointing to find out they were my neighbors because for at least an hour I thought they belonged to me. Now, why anyone would want to actually own four chickens is probably a question most of you are asking yourselves, but for me it just added to the ambiance of my new abode. I mean, who has chickens just wandering around their yard in America (well suburban America)? Not too many people. I thought it might be cool? You know, they could huddle around my feet as I pumped water every day and make me smile when I looked out my kitchen window and saw them just passing by on their afternoon stroll through the yard. Maybe I'd seen too many children's movies set on a farm?

After about four days of living with the occassional chicken visitors (my landlady and I have an opening in our fence which the chickens pass through whenever they feel like it) I was less enthused by their presence than I had originally anticipated. They were kind of loud (the one rooster at least) and really quite ugly. One of the chickens had this long scrawny hairless neck that gave me the goosebumps if I looked at it too closely. My visitors (who experienced all of these little excitements on the farm with me for the first week) complained that Kazakh chickens make a terrible sound. To be completely honest, I wasn't accustomed to listening to chickens in California so I can't be sure that they have different accents over here in Kazakhstan, but it's nice to pretend that things are just worse here because it's well... Kazakhstan. But, I was pretty wrapped up in hosting my visitors and the Global Awareness Conference so I didn't pay too much attention to the daily vocals of the neighbors farm animals.

As soon as my last houseguest left the farm, things changed. I was being woken up by the horrible ugly rooster at 6:30 every morning and he would annoy me as I made breakfast, lunch and dinner. Roosters don't crow once when the sun rises and then shut up for 24 hours - one of the many things I have learned from this Peace Corps experience that I hadn't expected. In fact, they crow all day long and I'm convinced that this particular rooster crowed more just when he began to really get on my nerves. And to the credit of my volunteer friends, I have to admit that he definitely started to sound very peculiar (as though maybe something was wrong with his vocal chords - or maybe it was just the Kazakh accent). The only relief was when I was able to escape to my school for classes everyday, but when I got home they were waiting for me. The four of them tromping around like they owned the place and talking their little heads off...

Well that seems like an appropriate transition for my rooster story here. You may have noticed that I switched to the past tense when talking about my chicken visitors. That's because after about a week alone with my chickens they stopped annoying me. In fact, I didn't even notice their presence anymore. I figured that the farm life was simply growing on me and that I had mastered co-habiting with my new farm animal friends. That Sunday afternoon my landlady came over and insisted that I come relax outdoors on such a beautiful day with her, her daughter and a neighbor friend. I was tired of studying Russian and looking for a chance to get to know the neighbors better so I obliged. It was during our time outside gossiping about all of the other neighbors that my landlady revealed some new news. Turns out the chickens had been beheaded on Saturday morning. All four of them. Now, I didn't know the word "beheaded" in Russian - and in fact, still don't, I have got to look that one up - but she was kind enough to do a little charades act for me.

Now, I had a sneaking suspicion that I was going to like my landlady the first time that I met her, but this news absolutely solidified our new friendship. She killed the chickens! I found myself so relieved that I wasn't going to be woken up at the oddest hours in the morning and have to see their hideous faces out my kitchen window. The best part about the beheading story, and the only reason she actually brought it up, was that when one of the chickens was beheaded, the cat ran up and snatched the head and ran off with it. Now, I can't be sure what kind of fun those two had together, but I can only imagine it was frighteningly inappropriate. As for my new life sans chickens...

Turns out the neighbor on the other side has got a damn rooster too. And, if I'm being completely honest with myself, it's entirely possible that he was the one waking me up every morning and I had just assumed it was the rooster that I saw wandering around my yard. Because, this new rooster is my personal alarm clock. He lives right outside my bedroom window and he starts the slow and steady process of pissing me off every day starting at 6:30 in the morning. Here's to hoping for another hungry neighbor...

No comments: