Would tomorrow's dinner please come to my office IMMEDIATELY?

At my old school in New York, our principal overused the P.A. system, calling out any staff member who was late for a meeting. Mr. Duch, the principal, didn't care if he interrupted classes five times a day, and you could always tell how pissed off he was by how he used the word immediately. If he didn’t use immediately at all, he was in a good mood. Sometimes he intentionally said the word softly, as in “Mr. Jones come down to the principal’s office immediately.” Then, you knew he was angry but trying to keep his temper. Most frequently, however, he would attack the beginning of the word in rage: “Mr. Jones, come down to the principal’s office IMMEDIATELY. Usually these announcements were merely annoying, but occasionally they were in the middle of Regents exams, which was unconscionable.

After yesterday, however, I realize that Mr. Duch can’t compete with a bunch of incompetent men trying to kill six bulls. While the students sat for their April exams, the mission where our school is housed was busy with preparations for a priest's ordination. The mission staff and our students had been busy for several weeks preparing: students in the hostel were made to weed and cut the grasses, a large banner went up, and the nuns and some of the more devout children had been practicing songs since February. On Friday, however, things took a more surreal turn.

Several local headmen donated bulls for the post-ordination feast, and when I got to school on Friday morning, these bulls were wandering around the mission grounds. Halfway through the morning’s three hour exam, a group of men began to try to slaughter the bulls. These guys were terrible bull-slaughterers. I first realized that something was amiss when I heard a shot, followed by the noise of a bull running past the staff room door. I ducked out to see what was going on. To my left, a bull was lumbering past the staff room and turning into the compound where most of the classes are held. Following him were six men. One man had a small rifle, but it was not of a sufficient caliber to bring down a bull. The other five men carried sticks and stones to throw towards at the bulls.


The technique for slaughtering the bull was terribly inefficient and cruel. The men with sticks tried to corner the bull, which usually meant they ran after the bull for a good 20-30 minutes at a crack, occasionally hitting him in the flank with a stick. If they finally did corner an animal, the man with the gun would advance as close as possible, shoot, and the run like hell. Because the gun was too weak or the man's aim too poor, shooting the bull only wounded it. Then angry bull would charge around the mission, sometimes through the through the classroom compound. One particular bull, a large black one, had been shot several times in the face and was pretty angry about the whole situation. I can't blame him. The men chased this particular bull around the mission and the school grounds for a couple of hours.

The Indian nuns and I looked on, somewhere between shocked, and disgusted. The Ovambos, both young and old, enjoyed the spectacle. The men chasing the bulls seemed to think it was some sort of a game. The students watched avidly from the windows of their classrooms, and a few brave ones stepped outside to see what was going on. Whenever a bull ran by their classroom, the children would all scream and run inside, smiling and chattering. Now, mind you, this was in the middle of an exam! I’m glad it wasn’t my test they were taking.

I finally watched the men bring one of the bulls down. They had shot it several times, and when it tried to turn away, several men pelted it in the head and face with large stones. It faltered, swaying unsteadily on its legs as if drunk, but did not fall down. Then one of the men ran behind and grabbed its tail, and the poor creature tried to run more time, dragging the man behind it. But by now the bull was so weak it could not run quickly, and when the other men caught up with it they stoned and shot it to death.

The interruptions to class were bad enough, and far worse than anything my old principal could do. But what I still can’t understand is the wanton cruelty in slaughtering the animals. Had they merely tied up the bull first, they could have been done in minutes rather than hours. There was no reason for these bulls to be chased around the mission for an hour or two, injured and frightened. There was no reason why the men could not have secured a better gun. There was no reason for the men to enjoy this cruelty. The poor bulls were competing in a game they could not win.