School chicken

With my last day at Ntabayengwe tomorrow, our South African adventure feels near its conclusion.

The school has provided me with much more than a year’s worth of interest and reward. And it has provided me with so many amusing moments. Yesterday I had another to add to the list.

Walking across the school I noticed a chicken being kicked by some of the children. It was surrounded and squawking. It looked greatly in need of help. I immediately ran to intervene on behalf of the bird.

One of the older boys saw me coming and, like the best turncoat, suddenly started protecting the chicken and fighting off his peers. When this failed, he dived on the chicken, putting his body in the way of the feet. As I reached the action, the boy scrambled to his feet with chicken tucked under his arm – like a rugby ball.

I demanded to know why the chicken had been attacked.

The answer was simple. It had been trying to eat the vegetables planted in the school plot. Thus a kick was the least it deserved.

Still feeling sorry for the chicken, I mandated its release. I began to explain that this would require the boy walking the bird out of the school gate to put it on the other side of the big perimeter fencing. However I didn’t finish my sentence. Instead I watched an alternative approach.

With his back to the fence, the boy with the chicken in his arms, suddenly launched it as high as he could skywards. Up, up, up, went the chicken. Higher and higher and higher. Until it was at least 35 feet in the air. And then the descent began.

The stunned chicken was clearly as surprised at me. For the first half of its downward journey it seemed paralysed by shock. But as the ground approached rapidly, it opened its wings and brought itself gently to earth on the other side of the fence.

The boys left the scene – disappointed not to have taught the chicken a more memorable lesson.