Chickens

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately, and as only life in a slow-paced developing country can induce, I’ve been thinking a lot about chickens. I know, my life sounds thrilling.

At first I began thinking about animals in general here and how Americans would be horrified and shocked that Pohnpeians eat dog, for example. I was sharing this thought with a fellow Volunteer, Ben, who then pointed out that Pohnpeians would be horrified and shocked by the way we treat some animals in America. His examples covered all the horrors of the food industry in America and the mistreatment of cows, pigs, chickens, and the like while they await their ultimate end. These are all things we are vaguely aware of as Americans, but most of us try to ignore those facts as we happily munch our cheeseburgers and chicken nuggets.

As I continued to ponder this comparison, I couldn’t help but focus on the chickens. Many times in the past, I have been driving beside a giant chicken truck on the highway, with far too many chickens jammed into hundreds of tiny cages and it always made me sad. Those sort of conditions (for any animal) prompted the new-age term “free-range”. And as I was sitting around here in my village thinking, I suddenly realized that I live among truly free-range chickens.

I’m not sure what free-range means in the context of America, but here, free-range literally means free range. Chickens roam around constantly. There are no fences or pens, and even though some of your chickens may be wandering around in the jungle or perhaps walking across the road (I am still trying to come up with the perfect Pohnpei-inspired punch line to that joke!), everyone knows those are your chickens, and stealing or mistreatment of those chickens is considered particularly heinous.

Chickens are pretty much allowed to do anything they want. I am constantly chasing chickens out of the house or the office at school (did you know chickens can fly in through windows? I didn’t) or fishing chicks out of small spaces they managed to wiggle into and they couldn’t get out of, and cleaning up the chicken poop they leave behind. When I’m eating food (again, everything is outside), I’m not only on the lookout for dog and cat food-thieves, but also chickens. They’ll jump up and snatch food right off your plate or out of your hands if you’re not paying attention. And they peck at your feet if you’ve dropped a piece of rice, which believe me, does not feel good.

Have you ever taken a nap and woken up with a chicken looking you in the face? I have.

And whoever came up with this idea that roosters only crow at dawn obviously never lived with any. Roosters crow whenever they damn well please, beginning usually around 4 am (hours before dawn). Now that is fun, let me tell you. My (American) family always finds it amusing that they can hear roosters in the background when we speak on the phone. But it ceased to be amusing around day two. And hens make a lot of noise too, did you know that? Constant noise. Squawking, clucking, noise.

There is one fun thing about the chicken noises, though. Evidently, there is a distinct sound that a hen makes while it lays an egg. I am learning (failing miserably) to recognize it. Regardless of what is going on, when the egg-sound is heard, children are always dispatched to recover the eggs. And remember, these are free-range chickens, so that entails following the sound into the jungle, around heaps of old metal or tires or trash and finding the egg. It’s like finding a needle in a haystack, except it’s an egg, in the jungle. I usually give up and just watch the kids find the eggs. Whatever.

But in addition to the ways in which chickens are annoying, they’re also kind of fascinating. Again, this may be the result of a lack of stimuli in my life, but I truly find the chickens interesting. Anatomically, I love observing the amazing dexterity of their specially-shaped feet, with the three main toes and the one small toe in back, and their ability to jump, balance, and grasp branches efficiently. And chicken necks. Have you ever really looked at a chicken’s neck? The neck is surprisingly long and can bend in an almost unnatural way in every direction, good to fixing out-of-place feathers, or snatching bread out of an unsuspecting American’s hand. And some of the roosters are just beautiful. Their colors and the patterns on their feathers are simply gorgeous. My favorite rooster (and I say favorite referring to its coloring only; all the roosters are on my hit list for waking me up every morning) is partially black. His black tail feathers glisten in the sun and shine green, blue, and purple. It’s incredible. But yes, I know it’s just a chicken.

The most amusing chicken activity that occurs is watching the chickens interact with the puppy (whom my family named Kujo, though they have no knowledge of the movie or the character-implications of the name). The chickens quickly discovered that, like most dogs on the island, Kujo’s fur is teeming with bugs, and they have taken to picking out those tasty morsels while Kujo naps in the sunshine. Initially, the pecking woke up the pup and startled him (as one would imagine the appropriate reaction to be), but ultimately he was able to ignore it and sleep peacefully. It seems like a win for both parties. And to express his sincere gratitude, Kujo has begun chasing the chickens. His favorite game is to grab the hens by their tail feathers until they let out a terrified cluck and then he finds another hen to torment. At first I worried about the chickens’ safety, but then I watched one of the hens whip around and peck at Kujo, so now I think they’re a pretty good match.

In the Pohnpeian language, the way to describe illegible handwriting is to say menginpeh duete malek sensenser pohn pwel, or writing like a chicken scratches the dirt. Sounds familiar? Chicken scratch. How funny is that? Some idiomatic phrases are more global than I thought.

And probably my favorite chicken-related Pohnpeianism, is the name of a mountain on the opposite side of the island from where I live. The name is Pwise En Malek, and it refers to the shape of the mountain itself. The translation? Chicken poop. Wonderful.

I’ll leave you with this story : the other day—and I kid you not, this is completely true—I came into my dark, closed bedroom, only to discover a small chicken nestled on my pillow. I turned on the light and the chicken simply lifted its head and gave me a look that I could only interpret as annoyance. As if I was interrupting its well-deserved nap. After a bit of a starring contest, I calmly picked up the chicken (with surprisingly little protest from the drowsy bird) and chucked it (somewhat violently) outside. It then seemed like a good time to change the sheets on my bed.  I may never solve this chicken mystery. And somehow that’s okay with me.

So there it is—the workings of my brain as I live amongst many, many chickens. Hope you enjoyed it!

Stay well,

Christy