Whaaaa???

What is it that Americans believe to be good luck; finding a penny heads side up, discovering a 4 leafed clover among 3 leafed nobodies, and then the weird one about bird poo falling on your head. Here in Namibia, I had the pleasure of learning that a chicken laying an egg on your bed is a very, very good luck (specifically for a woman's fertility). To quote my friend Pakela, “chicken egg in your bed?! It means good luck for five years and soon a fetus in your belly!”

And it happened to me, TWICE!

The bold, lil' pecker sneaked into my hut, hopped on my bed and let nature take its course. The first time I only found the egg and was obviously extremely baffled. The second time I caught the chicken red handed and, as someone who has never birthed a baby or an egg, was understanding enough to not interrupt the process. I let her have her 15 minutes of peace while she lay her egg in the same spot I lay my head each night. It was surprisingly a very clean process.

A friend, Geri, that recently moved a village nearby along the same dirt road was visiting when we both discovered egg #1 and egg #2. Geri is also female, short and white so unfortunately having arrived a year after the first white girl means she gets called Jackie too often. I enjoy having a friend and fellow American close to me for many reasons. One of the top reasons is that this girl can cook! So we took the precious eggs that sat comfortably on my sleeping bag and whipped up an egg, tuna, cornflakes, onion mixture and fried them into patties. Pair it with some chutney sauce and it was an exact replica of McDonalds chicken nuggets with sweet n sour sauce.

(After 19 months without fast food this may not be as accurate as I am depicting but delicious nonetheless). I would say good luck traditions in Namibia are a lot more fun than in America, it was such a nice treat on a Tuesday afternoon.