My Friend, the Chicken

Yesterday I was at a cafe in Tangjia with Cheikh and he decided he wanted to cook dinner.  The dining halls are closed so I have been cooking a lot and I think he feels like he hasn't been pulling his weight.  So we started walking to the market and on the way, he was like, "I want to buy a chicken," and then made the hand-across-the-throat killing motion.  "OK? Is that OK?" and I was like, yeah sure, whatever.  But I was thinking, "Well of course a dead chicken.  Why is the killing hand motion necessary to indicate you want to buy a chicken?"  So we get to the big market and he takes me to this part in the back where I've never ventured, and I see why the hand motion was necessary.  It's this huge area with squawking chickens all stuffed in cages, and a section with ladies standing around with knives in their hands, prepared to ready your selection for eating.  So, I drop my jaw and stare for a few seconds, have a little conniption, then almost cry, as I watch Cheikh go over and pick one out.  Then I realize that hand motion has come up in conversation many times, and every time I'm a little confused about why he feels the need to use it.  Like, "What did you buy at the market today?" "Some potatoes, and apples, and a chicken *hand motion*" But now I understand, he likes to go to the market and pick out a live chicken and kill it himself, because he's not supposed to eat meat that Chinese people prepared because the Chinese don't believe in God.  He does, of course - I cook all the time for him with meat I bought at the grocery store or whatever, and he doesn't complain - but I think he feels better about it this way.  Anyway he picks out his bird, and holds it up and smiles - SMILES - like he's found the best one of the bunch.  I'm too shocked to get very close to the action but he brings it over to me, and I'm like, "Are you going to thank it?!" And he's like, yes of course.  But just to be sure, I tell it in Chinese, it's native language, "Hello, I love you, later we will eat you, thank you."  I'm not sure if it understood though.  Then I walked away to buy vegetables and avoid catching a glimpse of the event, and the next time I saw it, it was all wrapped up and in a plastic bag.  Later, we ate it. 
I know this is a perfectly natural thing, of course.  I know people have been interacting with the animals they eat forever and ever.  But I've just never experienced it and I can't believe I'm dating someone from a culture where this is totally normal. 
It doesn't make me want to be a vegetarian, though.  I bet there are no vegetarians in Mauritania, either.  But so many in the states, where we don't see where our food comes from.  I guess that's why. 

Final Exam

Today I had a final exam scheduled at 9:30 AM for my class of pre-masters students in this Huanan program.  Or, at least that's what I thought.  When I got there, the students were all there, along with an adminstrator who wondered why my phone was off.  My phone wasn't off - he didn't have my number correct.  Apparently the students had been informed by the office that the exam was at 9, even though the schedule the office sent me said 9:30.  Anyway, after the test the administrator gave me a form with columns for "daily performance" and "final exam" scores.  I would have liked to look over the results for a bit, you know, make sure I had graded everybody fairly, but of course he wanted me to write down the scores right then and there.  Well, OK.  Then I asked why the "daily performance" column was already filled in, and he said that the percentage was based on how many unexcused absences that student had.  Now, I know for fact that the office does not have an accurate sense of how many unexcused absences a student had, because there's nothing to stop them from not telling the office if they miss a class or from writing their friend's name on the attendance sheet.  I, on the other hand, was very careful in taking attendance every class and know exactly who was there, and who came in late, and who was disruptive, every class.  I also know which students sat in the back and talked during class, which were unwilling to participate in conversation, which were enthusiastic and cooperative, and which did their homework.  But because the office felt the need to calculate daily performance scores for me, there are some students with 100% in that category who deserved a D, and a few who were great in class but missed a few, and so are stuck with a 75%.   Anyway after I filled in the final exam scores, the administrator asked me about one student who wasn't there - if he could make up the exam some other time.  I said, sure, but I thought there was a rule that if a student missed 1/3 of the classes, they could not sit for the exam.  This student had come to a total of about 3.5 classes, with some excuse about back problems or something.  The administrator said, well yes, there is that rule, but these students are all wealthy and we don't always have to stick to that rule.  (This is a true story.) 
I'm not sure how I'm supposed to be OK with this.