independence

a thought hit me many years ago that at lot of rich people live with the illusion that they are very clever and self-sufficient, certainly (and this bit is probably unconscious) more so than poor people. but of course rich people are far more dependent on 'the system' (trade) than their poor counterparts, generally speaking.

how long do you reckon you'd survive if money suddenly became unusable?

since i was about 11 it's always kindoff bothered me that we all so dependent on people we've never met to provide ourselves with basic things like clean water, food and electricity. looking back these thoughts were probably inspired by strange rumours i'd heard about the second coming and the tribulation and christians not being able to use money.

at MCF the children wash in the river, the grow 95% of their own food and cook it using fire wood they collect. they do have electricity but it goes of so often you could hardly become dependent on it. there are no fridges so the chickens go from running around their pen to being served for dinner within 2 hours, and yes i learnt the whole process! (and i feel like i've taken my first steps to independence.)

step 1. place chicken between your feet, one foot on it's legs and the other on it's wings.
step 2. gently bend it's neck back, and cut of head with a sharp knife.
step 3. try and recatch chicken which is now running around with no head on (no joke).
step 4. hold chicken above hot water up-side-down to drain. submerge neck into water which will cause chicken to 'drown' and stop running around.
step 5. submerge whole chicken in hot water and then pluck the feathers.
(chicken will now look like it came from supa-value)
step 6. remove intestines taking special care not to puncture the little blue one (the guy i was helping only new it's name in swahili, so i'm not exactly sure which bit it is. they eat every other bit of the chicken except for that.)
step 7. COOK!