The scene is just after dinner, as our stomachs are digesting another delicious homemade, Indian meal of beef curry and rice with shipote. It has been one of the hottest days yet. There is less humidity here, but it is still blazing at 9:30 at night. Sweat running down my face and no way of stopping it, I am about to set up my sleeping pad on the roof. Hopefully there will be a breeze because we have not had power today, so the fans are not working. It is unbearable inside the church where we are supposed to sleep.
I walk out of the church with my headlamp on and Samuel asks if he can try it. He puts it on and says, “I can use for hunting rabbit?” Without hesitation, I replied, “Yes. I come too?” He nodded and said that we will leave after one hour. Around 10:00, Samuel, the pastor, and I left the church and walked into the farm. We were each carrying a stick, but Samuel’s was the biggest. He instructed me to follow him very far behind because when he found a rabbit, he would creep up to it slowly, then it would walk towards him because of the light from his headlamp, then, he would strike it with his stick and we would eat it tomorrow.
We got out into the field and looked for a rabbit. Far across the field there was a light that looked like a light that would come from the eyes of a rabbit staring at a light. We slowly moved towards it, very excited. As we were walking closer, pastor was saying to me, “it is only paper. It is only paper, ok?” Still, we moved closer and closer. Sure enough, it was only paper. I feel like if we were doing this in the US, it might be easier just because of the amount of garbage that is all over here. We don’t have to worry about garbage around everywhere. This field was pretty clean, but it still had trash around the perimeter.
We left that area, not defeated, but energized because we knew we still had a lot of field left to cover. We slowly scan the field looking for animal eyes. Halfway across the field and not too far back we see them. Samuel says, “it is real this time.” He tells me to stay back and follow him. Follow the light that his headlamp is giving off. We move slowly toward the rabbit. It is staring at the light, unflinching. As we get closer, it does not come closer, but now it is gone. We search the field for it, looking left and right. When we look left again, we see the body of what looks to be a cat, and Pastor says, “We found rabbit. Do you see rabbit?” Confused, I answer, “Yes,” but I am thinking, are we hunting cats or rabbits? Either way, we continue towards it. After following the animal for at least 5 minutes, we realize that it has run away. We lost the “rabbit.” By now, we have covered the entire field and see no more rabbits, so we decide to head back in, much to my delight because by this time I am very tired. “But it is ok,” Pastor says, “because we will go out again tomorrow.”
Maybe we will find rabbit then.
