Tuesday, Dr. Nancy Dawson’s black studies class ventured outside the classroom to Kereiakes Park. About 20 students gathered under a shed. Kroger bags filled with corn and onions sat on the red picnic tables next to tin pans of jollof rice, cabbage, black beans and other common West African foods cooked by the students. They fired up the grill and awaited the main dish.
Earlier, a smaller group drove about 30 miles southeast to Allen County. Down the winding, seemingly never-ending Highway 1332, and past acres of emerald-colored fields with horses, cows and sheep grazing, was a modest Amish farm.
There, Titus Tirop, a senior from Eldoret, Kenya, led the slaughtering of a goat. With the help of Cave City senior John Coats, who fronted $80 for the Amish farmers, Tirop decapitated, skinned and gutted the goat. To his American classmates, it was unheard of. To him, it was tradition.
“We do this every weekend at home, it’s a blessing,” Tirop said.
Tirop has been in the U.S. since 2005 and suggested it as the final class project.
“I wanted to expose them to my culture and I talked to them as much as possible before to make sure they were OK with it,” he said.
The goat hung by its ankles from a chain, its organs in a green bucket and blood splattered on the hay beneath. Dawson and five students watched, their faces grimaced, as Tirop and Coats sliced and packed the goat.
“It was something I’d never seen,” Central City senior Mellindy Gregory said. “But she explained that it was in honor of ancestors and with that in mind I was at ease.”
To start the process, Dawson poured libation and prayed for the goat.
“I thought I’d be sad for it, but it didn’t make any noise; it was calm, so it just seemed natural,” Louisville sophomore Jade Lynn said.
Dawson, an adjunct professor who visits Africa often, said she knew the idea would meet some judgment, but it also met her mission: teaching others to be open to more than one way of life.
“I was amused by their reactions,” Dawson said. “They eat meat everyday! It just shows how we’re so separated from nature.”
Dawson requires her students to create special projects demonstrating what they’ve learned to her and to the Western community.
As part of that, her African American dance class is partnering with the Sustaining Student Success program, which Martha Sales, a black studies instructor, directs.
The dance class will perform today on the South Campus lawn at 11:10 a.m. and 3 p.m., with other workshops from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.
“This event gives pride and acceptance to students,” Sales said.
SSS works to increase retention rates among first-generation, minority and low-income students.
The class lingered as the sun set. Dawson said she has enjoyed seeing them grow.
“They saw the process from the farm to the table and it’s amazing to see what has come from a goat,” she said. “New friendships, respect for cultures, animals. Instead of listening to their iPods, they’re socializing and sharing values and that’s what this class is all about.”
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