Friday, september 15, 2006

The Hunt

Last Sunday the hunting season in the South of France was officially opened. Then you notice that you are truly from a different country where millions of pigs are locked up in order to feed the hungry people, but where the hunt, fur coats or bullfighting stands equal to raising the right arm and say Heil Hitler, or another detestable form of appreciation.

In Tirol there is a strange and generally accepted custom to conclude a collective skiing week: you put your right leg wíth ski in an angle of 90 degrees in front of you, lean with your left-hand on your ski pole, stretch your right arm in front of you and loudly yell: Sieg Heil!

Wait, wait... that's how I - filled with horror - understood all of that ritual at the end of my first and last skiing week ever came to an end. But later on Ruud told me they didn't say "sieg heil", but "schi heil". To me this was already to late, first a week with a bunch of elated buffoons tearing through the snow and as a finishing touch a dubious skiing salute, NO. This still is the plain to see evidence that Austrians and a part of the Dutch still don't get it.

But ok, back to the hunt. On the tv-news here you don't see depressed faces while in the background bare bow archers in Rocky outfits stalk through the woods to finish of dear's. And you won't see a father disguised as Andries Knevel with frowned eyebrows commenting on a club of friend with hunting gear showing off nine boars on the ground, no, joyce all over that we can finally go out and shoot real live animals again.

Delightful, I already look forward for this now! Especially when I browse the weekly magazine of supermarché E. Leclerq and admire the hunting accessories: a charming bag for live rounds, a cover for my gun, all so charming. And then this backpack with chair, where I can sit on, but can also put my first shot wild boar on.

A few years ago we stayed the Christmas holidays at an old farm 'en pierres' in a desolate landscape near the Cirque de Navacelles. In the summer you'll walk by and think: this is Paradise.

But in the winter, when the trees no longer bear leaves, the sun sets at three thirty and on a regular day, not much more then a lost bull and a heard of sheep pass by, you thank God if a few of these loony tourists liven things up a bit.

As a tourist, your perception is slightly clouded, but when you live there and notice the gunshots and the barking of dogs not far from your house, keeping you company for six long months, one can get pretty desperate. The habitants of the farm - young Parisians with two little children - complained about this continuously, but they couldn't do anything against it, because the previous owners had it put down in writing that hunters could come on their terrain. Pitty!

No, I am not a hunting fan, the idea alone revolts me and as far as I am concerned they can put a stop to it today. I don't care there are too many pigeons and quails. What I find absolutely ridiculous is that a national pastime that not only costs so numerous animal lives, but also human lives (average 26 deaths per year) is legitimate. The wellbeing of the civilians here is so important, try to train in a gym without a medical statement, that won't do. But finishing each other off by accident during the hunt, no problem. See, if you live in France and want to get rid of your wife, just wait till the hunting season. No one will hold it against you: "I thought it was a wild boar. Sorry”.

posted by Ruud at 23:30  |  send a message

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