Red Badge of Chicken (…er…Courage)

So by now the insanity of traffic here is probably no surprise to anyone…but there are still days when it catches me off guard. In this city it’s not unusual to see motorcycles driving down the sidewalk or to have one headed straight for you as it heads very confidently the wrong way down a one way street. I’ve thought more than once recently that it’s very much like playing a game of “chicken.”

Then about the time I got used to people playing chicken, the chickens started trying to play people! The other day I was coming home in a bit of a hurry. As I pulled through our already open gate a chicken runs right in front of my motorcycle and stops to look at me! For a split second I found it funny—until I realized that he wasn’t going to move.

Under normal circumstances I would have just elected to hit the chicken—you can never get too much protein around here. However, I’ve now been here long enough to understand that chickens are treated more like pets here and that losing one means you’ve lost part of your livelihood. Killing someone’s chicken can cause serious relationship issues in the neighborhood.

Thus I locked down my brakes and slid my back tire to swerve out of the way.
Thankfully I missed the chicken, who THEN decided to politely walk out of the way. Unfortunately, I wasn’t so lucky. In the process my leg grazed the very hot muffler on the bike, and while it was only a split second, it was long enough to get a nice burn on my calf.

The burn is nothing serious, and it seems to be healing just fine. Rather than fretting about it I started looking for the silver lining (something you learn to do often when very little seems to go as planned). I jokingly told my friends that my love for the people here and my desire to adjust to their culture was so deep that I decided to get a “local tattoo” just so I could identify with them more. They looked a bit perplexed as tattoos are pretty taboo here—that is until I turned my leg to show them my “red badge of courage.” They smiled and responded by pulling up their pants legs and showing of matching scars from years of motorcycle riding. Pretty much any young guy here has at least one.

Oh what lengths we go to for those we love! LOL.