Oodles of Noodles

…the rooms have a hint of asbestos and maybe just a dash of formaldehyde.

Flashback to two months ago:
Laying on the side of the road, their appendages were bound together like roped calves. I thought they were dead until we got closer and I saw their chests rhythmically rising and falling. It pained me to see them piled on top of each other next to the road like that, but it didn’t seem to bother anyone else. A motor taxi pulled up next to us with six more in the back of his cart. The driver got out and tossed them on the pile. They screamed, mostly from fright, but I’m guessing being tossed 3 feet didn’t feel too pleasant either. The kids screamed the loudest and tried to stand up and run away, but the older ones just laid there like it was an everyday occurrence. The kids screaming made me well-up, but I fought the urge to cry because no one else seemed to be affected. How could they treat them like that?

We continued down the highway, picking-up and dropping-off passengers every 1/4 km or so. 30 minutes into the drive we picked up a man with a hogtied kid. I wondered where the kid would ride, there was no room for him in the bus. Without skipping a beat the cobrador(Sorry, I don’t know what cobrador is in English. Neyshmi?) tosses the kid on top of the bus and off we drive. I could no longer fight back the tears. The kid was on the roof of the bus screaming like no one I’ve ever heard before. Talk about animal cruelty, PETA would have a field day. Now when I’m served cabrito (goat), I politely push it aside and ask for the chicken instead. I just hope I don’t see the way chickens are transported any time soon.

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Now thinking back to that day, I wonder if I wasn’t just being insensitive to the fact that Peruvians are not taught to treat animals with the same love and respect like people from the USA. Not to mention that I’ve never seen goats transported in the US. I wonder if they’re treated the same way.