How to eat a sheep

This story begins with Jack. Jack is Kate's black dog who likes to chase sheep and goats. We were spending the weekend at Hole in the Wall and on Friday afternoon Kate and Jack were on the beach when Jack spotted some sheep on a nearby hill and chased after them. Kate didn't expect him to reach them on time, but one sheep got separated from the rest and Jack caught up. Unfortunately, Jack's playing ended up in a mortally wounded sheep.

A few hours later, when we hadn't heard from any of the locals about missing a sheep, Kate decided it was time to do something. So she gathered up a bunch of enthusiatic helpers. With very few torches, we missioned across the beach in almost pitch darkness to find the then dead sheep. It took 4 people (each holding 1 leg) to carry the sheep back from the far end of the beach.

The question then became: what does one do with a dead sheep? It is standard practise that when you injure or kill an animal in the Transkei (even if the animal does a suicide run in front of your car), you have to pay - big time! So we knew Kate would be buying the sheep, so she may as well use it. The problem was, that the sheep had not yet been identified so we couldn't cut it up (as the owner's initials are spray painted onto the fleece). And it was about 8 o'clock at night - bed time for your average Transkei local, so it was unlikely to be identified until the next morning. So the problem becomes where to store the sheep overnight. Can't fit the whole thing in a fridge or freezer. Can't leave it outside cos other animals will eat it. Don't want to store a dead animal inside either. The best idea we could think of was to put in on the roof overnight where it is less likely to be eaten.

Fortunately, before we could get the sheep on the roof, the owners were found. After long negotiations in Xhosa, Kate and Dan manged to negotiate a deal. Unfortunately the sheep was pregnant, meaning that 2 sheep had to be paid for. The final price was R750.

Then came the dissection. Two security guards from Hole in the Wall Hotel were willing to cut it up in exchange for the organs - fine with us since we didn't want to eat them anyway. As a bunch of medical people, we watched in fascination as the sheep was dissected by torchlight.

Above: sheep with the skin removed - much like skinning a cadaver

Below: Intestines, liver, stomach (and maybe lungs)

As the organs began coming out, it was an interesting cultural situation as we declared certain parts as edible or otherwise. The security guards had a completely different idea as to what was edible. So we made 2 piles: one for us and one for them. The only part that didn't go in either pile was the uterus and fetus. The uterus was huge - the security guards reckonned she would've given birth in 2 weeks. When the uterus came out it was a sacred moment. The local guys were deeply impacted by this visual reminder of loss of potential and refused to take the lamb out of the uterus to show us, instead disgarding it in the bushes with tangible sadness.

There was surprisingly little meat on such a large animal: mainly the legs. It went in a bucket to spend the night in the fridge. The next day, Ben and Kate spent two hours dissecting further and removing the meat from the bones and other bits. The meat went into a delicious potjie that Ben made, and so the sheep ended up feeding about 20 people and still having the left overs. It is surely the freshest meat i've ever eaten. Thank you Kate, Ben and the sheep.