The Dead Doro by Ayrian

 

The week before Easter, our house cleaner Hirute picked up a doro, which is chicken in Amharic, from the market for us. But she actually brought us a rooster that probably was the nicest looking rooster ever. Hirute asked mom who was killing the chicken and mom said that I was. She laughed and said it was a man’s job to kill the doro. When she left I asked mom are we killing it today or tomorrow, but mom said not until Friday before Easter. I was getting so impatient for the day we were going to kill it, and then finally Friday came, I got so excited. Hirute came over with her three kids, Heaven, Rihanna, and Eyob. They stayed and had a coffee ceremony, but then they went home and we still hadn’t killed the doro, we waited and waited, I was so impatient. Finally Hirute came back and we had to run around the yard and catch the rooster, then dad got to cut the neck and it died. Then we learned how to pluck the feathers out, you have to put it in hot water that was boiling on the stove, this made the feathers come out easier. Then we made a little fire in our coffee burner and held the doro over it to burn off the little feathers. Then you cut the legs off and the wings and take the skin off and cut it open. When Kai saw this he said, “Is that the yummy meat” and we all laughed, mom and me most. Tenesae said “yuck” but I said “wow”. This was so much fun for the first time I got to see the lungs, the heart and the kidney’s and liver. Boo our puppy got a good treat when we gave her the feet to chew on. Mom said, “I don’t know if I can eat this.” But now we have doro so that we can make doro wat for Easter dinner. When Sunday came and I saw the doro wat my mouth began to water. It tasted so good, not like chewing on a tire!