Where does your meat come from?

As I was leaving my favorite grocery store, a delivery truck pulled up with a load of fresh goat meat... and I do mean fresh.

Aren't they cute? Best not get too attached. 

Of course, I grabbed my camera and ran after the delivery man, catching up to him in the alley beside the store, much to the amusement of every man in the parking lot. From the security guard to the goat man—even my own driver Ade!—everyone chuckled at me and shook their heads.

When I returned to the car, Ade asked, "Madame, did you take a picture of those goats?"

"Yes. Yes, I did."

"Why?"

"You gotta understand, Ade, in America, we don't see our meat alive. We see it wrapped in plastic with a price tag on it. All the slaughtering happens out in the country somewhere."

"I see. That is very different. For example, for my Christmas celebration, I will buy a goat."

"Do you slaughter it yourself?"

"No, someone else prepares it for me."

"For my Christmas celebration, I will go to the grocery store and buy a frozen turkey."

"What about bush meat?" he asks.

Uh... what about bush meat, I wanted to say, but instead I went with, "Hmm, what do you mean?"

"Bush meat, like antelope, birds (and something I didn't catch)?"

"Well... Americans hunt, but they don't hunt because they need the meat. They hunt for fun. Animals like deer, wild boars, wild turkeys, pheasant, rabbit. And hopefully, if they're responsible, they eat what they kill."

"Ah," he grunts (or actually it's more like an "Ay-yuh" which, in Nigeria, loosely translates to "Okay, I get what you are saying"). "That is very different. Here it is a job to hunt."

"Yes, it is different. Here, you are closer to your food. In America, most of us wouldn't know what to do if it wasn't done for us."

Ade chuckles. "Our way is better."

And I have to agree, just a little bit... At least, that is, until I imagine a bunch of cows being herded into the back of my local H-E-B.

On second thought, maybe we should just stick to the status quo.