Pigs And Sheep Are Not Pets But Bar-Be-Cue!

In 1995, Universal Pictures released the movie Babe. It tells the story of a pig that wants to be a sheep dog and it was a movie that brought just about every six-year-old to ten-year-old in America to tears. It was such a hit that, from its $30 million production budget, it grossed $254,134,190 worldwide.

It didn’t end there. Activists around the country besieged movie theatres with flyers documenting the real life abuses of pigs. Further, pork sales went into a sharp decline because at the dinner table, kids would cry at the thought of having to eat Babe or one of its cousins. They also forbade their parents from buying pork and all because of the movie. On top of that, many kids started keeping piglets and pigs as pets.

There is also the story of 8-year-old Sarah who lived on a farm in North Yorkshire, England. When one of the sheep gave birth and rejected one of its lamb, Sarah, stepped in to save the day. She took the little lamb under her wings and mothered it as a pet. However, a few days before Christmas, the lamb got out of its pen and wandered off to the main road where, a 40-foot container truck did the needful and splattered its brains all over the motorway.

Sarah was so distraught that the incident made the national papers. It also got the attention of the then PM, Tony Blair, who invited her to Downing Street where he present her with another lamb.

This is where I come in. I was 10-years-old I guess, when on a trip to the village, Grand Dad give me a goat. Unlike Sarah, I didn’t think of looking after it as a pet – making sure it has eaten and all that crap. Rather, my thoughts revolved round: “Which knife is Farmhand going to use to slit its throat?”

Two days later and at the crack of dawn in the matooke plantation, with a steely Al Queda stare, Farmhand put the blade the goats throat that guess what we had for lunch – roast goat.

Black Kid and White Kid differ. Black Kid would still have eaten pork no matter how many times they saw Babe. And to go telling their dads not to buy pork because it might be Babe, or that a pet is being eaten, what nonsense is that? If I told Grand Dad that when he gave me the goat, his response would have been instantaneous – a swift left across my cheeks followed by: “Silly, tumbavu!”

If a speeding Gaga bus on its way to Kabale, knocked and killed a piglet that was a pet to a four-year-old from Ntungamo, I don’t see President Museveni inviting her to State House so that he can console her. He would think it a joke and would wonder what kind of broken and unserious home she came from. 

Ugandan kids have real pets, and I mean real pets like Pit Bull Terriers, Doberman Pinschers and Rottweiler’s. Not namby-pamby White Kid pets like goldfish or rabbits. In fact, any dog that is savage enough and has teeth with a potential to rip or maim at the snap of a finger, Black Kid considers it a pet.

So White Kid, listen up here. Ducks, pigs, piglets, goats and lamb are NOT pets! They are food! When you see them, don’t think pets rather, think of barbecue sauce coated racks of ribs roasting away on a bar-be-que on a Sunday afternoon. Do you see where I am coming from!? By the way White Kid, Black Kid and I are already devouring the ribs as you cry away for your pets. Tasty, very tasty!