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.