How Do You Know What Food Is When You Only Eat Trash?

There are a few goats who live in our little neighborhood, and in an effort of goodwill toward them, I started saving food scraps so they could have something to graze on instead of the usual trash and dirt that they're used to. A few nights ago, I decided the time was right to set out some scraps for our little friends. I went outside our gate and dumped some orange peels and chicken bones for the goats to pick up. But this caused a huge and completely unintended scene. Several men saw me dumping something out and ran over in a highly distressed manner shouting "Oh no! No! No! No, no, no!" I tried to innocently explain "Oh, mais ca va, ca va. C'est de la nourriture pour les chevres." ("It's ok. It's only food for the goats.") They were not having it. Not on their street. Our guard ran out and saw the commotion. He was absolutely horrified. He ran back inside to get the trash bucket and started sweeping the food back into the bucket. I tried to explain again, but to no avail. He took the bucket back inside, set it down, made me throw my plastic bags into it, pointed at the trash and said "Halas!" (Meaning "enough" or "finished"--his way of saying, "hey lady, don't dump trash outside anymore because we have a bucket for that stuff"). I went back inside determined to try again later.

Yesterday, another opportunity presented itself. I heard a goat outside and ran out to greet it with my orange peels. He was winding his way through the little market stalls on our street and by the time I caught up, he was chomping away at a dirty plastic bag. I gleefully threw down my orange peels, content to have found a recipient of my benevolence, when what did I see? Monsieur Le Chevre (Mr. Goat) sniffed my fresh and delicious peelings with indifference at best, then snubbed them and turned back to his plastic bag! As a Djiboutian goat, he has most likely been grazing on trash, dirt and filth for most of his life and couldn't even comprehend the feast I had set down before him. He was like a child "who goes on making mud pies in the slums because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at sea." (C.S. Lewis) I suspect this is true of the wider adult culture here as well. Sometimes people get so set in their ways, even if they are doing something that is clearly not working, they will keep on doing it that way because change is too hard or too frightening or it makes the future too unknown. Even the simplest of animals have something to teach here!