A comment related to the inclement cow-slaughter included these questions:
How much does a cow cost? A "large" one goes for around five hundred US dollars.
Who in the family cares for cows? Either the owner himself or often one of his children.
What work is involved? Moving the cow around a few times a week to find food and daily bringing it water. I'm not sure what else.
Are cows milked? Why/not? As far as I know, not very often in this area. My educated guess/answer for why not is this: Cows with hardly any water to drink do not produce much milk.
Would a family more likely sell a cow for money or slaughter it and sell the meat? Usually they raise the males until they are big enough to sell at the market, and keep the females to breed until they are getting too old. Cows are a major income source in this area. Many families keep a cow on hand to sell and pay for big events like funerals.
Are there proverbs about cows? I'm sure there are, but it's too late to look them up. I'll try to let you know later.
Here we think that if cows are lying down in the field it will rain... do Haitians believe that cows have any particular insights? Not as far as I know, but in this superstitious society, it's quite possible.
Do they know that cow roam free in India and are sacred and aren't eaten even by poor people? I doubt it. That concept would be extremely hard to grasp by most Haitians.
Ok, there...I answered the questions. Happy now? I'm still planning on posting a sweet picture of the poor beast going down. I find it fascinating and also a bit horrific. (Two things that our blog readers should be used to by now.) Tara will possibly remove the picture at some point, so check often and early for the "Convansyon 2007 Bef Photo". You might miss it.
-Troy
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