There is an anthropological approach called participant observation, which translates as learning through doing; in order to understand a group, one must behave as they do.

Now, anthropologists have a tendency to do stupid things. For example, I was recently reading an anthropology paper that stated “Somehow, I find the point easier to make in verse”, and then proceeded with 60 lines of tortuously bad verse to prove a pointless point (if you don’t believe me, the reference is Tilly, C. 1991. Dominance, resistance, compliance... discourse. Sociological Forum 6 (3):593-602.). Frankly, any discipline that prefers to make their academic arguments in verse deserves something a tad stronger than contempt. However, participant observation has some merits, mainly that it can be a lot of fun.

In the spirit of understanding the community better through participating in their activities, I have now joined the chicken owning society. This is an important activity in the village, for eggs, for meat and for cockfighting. Cockfighting is central to the lives of the men in the village, and many an hour is spent tending to and talking about their cocks. Incidentally, a cockfight is perhaps not worth the talk: twelve minutes of flapping wings and pecking beaks. It is rather undignified and inelegant, less resembling Queensbury rules championship boxing, and more like drunken women outside sleazy nightclubs at 3AM on a wet Saturday night in Manchester. Perhaps out on a hen night.

The animal that I now own is a young cockerel that was deemed by the owner to be too weak and wimpy to fight, so he sold it to me on the cheap. I did have ugly duckling type ideas, where I would rear the rejected creature to become a famous, brave and noble fighting animal, beating the chickens that were chosen over him at a young age, but this romanticism was defeated by a heavy dose of reality when I saw him being attacked by a female (henpecked?). Hence he has been named as “Montro”, a Dominican word that translates as “weakling”. He is currently serving his time as an alarm clock before being served up as a stew.

My ownership of this useless animal has confirmed my status as a useless Gringo. People laugh as they ask me how “the champion cock” is, which then provokes a joking conversation about how Montro will beat their best chicken any day. This often turns into a useful conversation that gives me some nice bits of information for my research. Perhaps I will write an anthropological paper entitled “methodological implications of penile poultry jokes for participant observation in a Latin American setting”. But perhaps I will prefer to keep my Geographer status, and the dignity that accompanies it.

I also have a few hens on order, to provide me with quality eggs, so I shall keep you updated on that.