chicken shit

i touched bird crap today with my fingers. not just any old bird crap, but chicken crap. yet more specifically, hen crap. it was black and white with streaks of red. the hen, not the crap.

it was 5:30 in the morning, pre-dawn, and i was approaching my seat on the bus to asmara. my friend was standing next to my seat, looking a bit perplexed, for whatever reason i had no idea. as usual i figured it was perplexity over nothing, nothing to worry about, let me sit down and let's get on with it.

i hear him say, "have a seat." so i do. still standing next to the seat i've just taken, he's still looking perplexed and muttering something and pointing at what looks like a large dusty feathery particle on my seat. again i figure, geez, what's the problem, it's all cool, we're all cool, and i cool-ly flick at the large dust and feather-like particle, thinking it will fly away and that's that, no worries. to my sleep and light-deprived surprise, it doesn't flick away, but instead spreads itself slightly while largely and goo-ily attaching itself to my middle finger. my reaction, not so cool-ly, "err, ehh, gross, what is that?" my friend replies, quite cool-ly now, "the waste of a hen."

"The waste of a hen?!"

"Yes, the waste of a hen."

"Why didn't you tell me?!"

"I did, I told you not to sit."

"I thought you said 'have a seat'!"

"Then i pointed and said 'the waste of a hen."

"I saw you pointing, but i didn't hear what you said. I thought it was a large piece of dust or something!"

"No, you know there are many hens on this bus. Look," he gestured widely with his arms. "They drop their waste on the seats when we're not around."

we adjusted ourselves after i wiped my hen-shit-stained finger with a tissue and promptly threw it on the floor of the bus.


later we ate boiled chickpeas. my friend exclaimed, "haha, you ate the waste of a hen."

"I didn't eat it. I ate the chickpeas."

"Yes, but your finger had the waste of a hen on it."

I protested, yes, but it was wiped off with a tissue. so i didn't eat the waste of a hen, but the chickpeas.

"no no, heehee, you ate the waste of a hen."

"it was wiped off!" i protested again.

then i wondered to myself, sitting in a pondering silence, are we grade 7 teachers, or yet in grade 7 ourselves?

did i eat boiled chickpeas, or the waste of a hen?

i think the students are getting the best of us.