It all started the day we got home from up north. There were two pintards (guinea fowl) in our concession, hiding behind a metal door that was lying on its side. At first, we thought they were there because they were going to be eaten soon for some upcoming holiday celebration (they are delicious). Upon further investigation, which included asking the little girl who is about 10 years old why they were there, we discovered that they were there “for playing”. There are two pintards; one for the girl and one for her older brother. I knew that alarms and sirens should have been going off in my head to alert me of the atrocities that were going to take place to these poor birds, but I didn’t think much of it. After all, I grew up with pet birds, right? I was forgetting that we don’t live in America; we live in Benin where animals do not have rights, the ability to feel pain, emotions, or a mind and personality of their own.
The next day, I noticed that these birds were tied by their foot to a tree next to the door. It wasn’t much later that the kids got home from school and started “playing” with the birds. Their idea of playing includes grabbing the rope that is attached to the bird’s foot so that the bird is hanging upside down all the while trying to flap its wings and fly away. Then they began swinging the bird around. At this point, Craig and I were both standing outside our door yelling at them to stop and to be nice to the birds. They just giggled as they put down the birds. As soon as we went back inside, they started up again. I would have felt better if their plans for the birds were dinner.
The next morning, Craig and I awoke to a shrieking metal-grinding noise that these birds were making. I have never heard anything like that come out of an animal. These birds only reprise from the torment and torture are when the kids are in school. The weekends pass by slowly for them, as well as the evenings. It has become a daily pattern for us to yell at the kids to stop dragging the birds all over the ground by the rope, swinging them around, hanging them upside down, all the while they are crying. Sometimes, they just pull on the rope just enough so that as the pintards are trying to hide behind the door, they don’t actually go anywhere. It’s sick and I can’t watch or even look at the poor birds. What’s worse is that I have never seen anyone give them water or food and it’s been two weeks. We sneak them some leftover rice and beans and water. We have began calling the two kids little assholes (they don’t know English) as a way of venting our frustrations to them.
Craig and I have talked to the neighbors and to the parents and nothing seems to really change. We are plotting to cut them loose and free them, but their mother is always home when the kids and father aren’t. We’re patiently waiting for the right moment to liberate the poor pintards. In the meantime, it’s still Guantanamo Bay for birds inside our concession.
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