Bovine CSI... In Quirinopolis...

Now that we're in the sleepy town of Quirinopolis I'll be honest and say there isn't a tremendous amount to see or do. That being said, I thought I'd take my camera on a trip up to the school I'll be teaching at and see what kind of things I could take pictures of along the way.

Now, I've been slated a few times about my involvement in wanton animal slaughter, so I see this post as somewhat of a justification in the peer pressure sort of way ('But everyone's be doing it). Please see exhibit A, B and C below. Each of them taken at various points along my exciting trip up the hill.

Exhibit A: Spine likely to be from a bovine entity

Exhibit B: Much of the same

Exhibit C: Ok, I can't quite tell what part of a cow this is but I'm
guessing it is probably a leg, arm, or something. Maybe part of
the hip? It's got a socket joint...

Being that the trip is all of five minutes the results weren't particularly surprising. By this I mean, that there are bones in the streets similar to this all over the city. I remember on my first trip to Quirinopolis seeing a cow's head just lying in the road. Horns and all (as Oliver Cromwell may well have said).

Now despite the obvious surprise for a westerner of seeing pieces of animal carcass in the road, one thing struck me - the majority I see are all pieces of cow spine. I can't for the life of me fathom out why this is. Cristina's family is a farming family and they eat almost everything including the spine (there's nothing I hate more than looking into a saucepan and seeing vertabrae staring up at me... Well, actually, chicken feet are pretty close). Why therefore does there appear to be an excess of this body part in the road?

Maybe people just really like the taste of the spine. For me it's just a fiddly mess, and the worse bit is watching people scrape the crud (I believe it's called 'marrow') from inside the bones with their fingernails and sucking them into their mouth. Still horses for courses, and I usually keep my eyes firmly planted on my plate.

Maybe they give them to the dogs as they are the worst bit... But why just this part of the body and not any other?

When I asked my wife about the abundance of spines in the road and tried to get a sane answer, her only response was 'because people here do stupid things'... Anyone got any ideas what all this could mean?? What's perhaps more shocking is that three months later, they're still there!