Vegans Love Carnivores

It is now my seventh month living in Namibia for my PhD fieldwork and my fifth on the livestock farm collecting data.  How time has flown!  When I first came to visit this farm back in July I never envisioned that I would have even stayed here (I had plans to live on another farm but that didn’t quite work out…!), let alone feel so at home here.  Always having lived in cities, towns and large villages before, I wasn’t sure how well I’d cope being  a 260 km roundtrip to the nearest town, not least because of the lack of social activities, but also the logistical constraints on buying things like food when you run out! The farmhouse I've been staying in for the last 5 months Fortunately, I fitted in spectacularly well to farm life, helping out with every aspect, from the happy and fun like playing with the dogs, to the grim and ugly like assisting with the killing and butchering of cows.  What I have seen and taken part with on this farm has opened my eye...

After being away on holiday for 11 days, I came back to my farm house tired and in desperate need of a good night’s sleep.  On the long 700 km drive home, one of the things that I was longing for was a square of the “Niki” brand (no jokes) of dark chocolate with coconut.  However, as I got back, I could not find the two bars that I was sure I’d left behind.  “Strange”, I thought, “maybe I ate it all or took it with us on the camping trip and forgot”.  I was sure, though, that I had left these bars of chocolate on my shelf.  I decided to look for them in the morning when I was more with-it. As I got ready for bed, I went to turn on my small battery-operated bedside lamp.  Weirdly, it was not there.  “Maybe it has fallen from the table onto the floor”, I guessed, and made a mental note to also have a search for it the next day. Alas I never will get to eat this lovely chocolate bar Morning came and I went on a search for my missing belonging...