Glowing Chicken Feet Alarm Villagers

GREG KELEBONYE
Staff Writer | Monday July 26, 2010 00:00

 

The chicken feet would also bring her an endless stream of visitors, not just from Motiketsana ward, but also from other wards in Molepolole and indeed newspaper reporters. The chicken feet glowed in the dark! And do not be so quick to dismiss her for a lunatic. The light was not some light bouncing off some mirror or someone playing with a torch, but real light emanating from the usual menoto that many a local people buy for either relish or a snack. The Monitor team went to investigate the story of the lighting chicken feet as there were fears that the meat might be contaminated with radioactive material. The chicken feet became studded with light once placed in the dark.

' I bought these chicken feet packets the day before yesterday and placed them in the fridge as I figured I would use them for relish the following day. However before going to bed, and knowing my two boys would probably cook the relish - and I don't have money to buy better relish or more of the same type, I decided to take the frozen chicken feet packs to my bedroom. I woke up sometime during the night - I noted the time and it was just after 2 am. I realised that something was just not right in my room, then I noticed it. Light came from where I had placed the plastic containing the two packs of chicken feet. Initially I thought it was my mobile phone and that I must have been woken up by it ringing and that the light was the usual residual light following a call, so I went over to the plastic and no, it was not my phone.

The chicken feet were aglow. So bright were the feet that I could read out the P3.70 price tag attached to the other pack. I hit myself as I thought I was dreaming then called out to my two boys who sleep in the next bedroom. My first boy came in and asked if he should switch on the light. I told him no. As soon as he stepped in he looked at the plastic bag containing the chicken feet and jumped back exclaiming 'mama menoto e laetile [mama the chicken feet are aglow]. His little brother came and took off from the pack towards me, scared stiff at the sight of the glowing chicken feet,' she told The Monitor team, bringing out the chicken feet from her freezer. The team arrived shortly after dark, as the chicken feet would only glow in the dark.

She continues: 'when I realised that I was not dreaming I called out to my neighbours who immediately came as they thought I was being attacked. They too were shocked at the sight of glowing chicken feet.'

Her neighbours take up the story: ' Never in my life have I seen anything like it. We could literally read the price tag with the light from the chicken feet, like it were some powerful cellphone light,' chips in 45-year-old Basupang Kedirwang.

'At first I thought there must be some light in the plastic bag, but when she took out the chicken feet and they continued to light, I realized that this was no ordinary sight,' adds another neighbour, 56 year-old Tsholofelo Legakwa. Although Legakwa vaguely remembers some meat glowing when she was very young, she cannot remember it glowing in the manner that these chicken feet were doing.

'As we figured together why the chicken legs could be glowing I thought it must be the foam-plates which were used to package the chicken feet, so I removed them and placed the feet on a plate, but they continued to glow. I then asked my son to bring us water so that we could defrost the chicken feet as next we thought it could be the ice that glowed, but that seemed to increase the glow as suddenly it became so bright that we could see the individual joints in each chicken foot - like it were an x-ray,' Moeti says, still perplexed.

Scared even further Moeti called the police.' Two vans arrived full of soldiers and police personnel. They all saw it and could not offer help. One officer advised that I should take the chicken feet back to the Shopright where I had bought them,' she says. However The Monitor team learnt about the mystery of the glowing chicken feet and persuaded Moeti to allow the team to see the glowing chicken feet. As agreed, the team arrived just after dark.

Even as The Monitor team arrived a dozen or so people streamed out of Moeti's yard. They were curious neighbours who had converged at Moeti's yard to witness the spectacle of the glowing chicken feet. Another small crowd begins to gather almost immediately. As Moeti narrates her story she explains that it will be necessary to switch off lights in the house so that the glow from the chicken legs can be seen. She does and sure enough little lights, pretty much like glowing cellphone buttons come up on the chicken legs as one of the gathered neighbours exclaims;

 'He batho mo ke metlholo!' [People, this is a mystery!].

'Kana fa e ne e le nama ya kgomo re ka bo re re e utsulwe, jaanong menoto?' offers another neighbour, Kefilwe Koboyatshwene.

The neighbors, came up with a myriad of explanations.

'Ba a bo ba tswa go tsaya mae a kgwanyape!' [they must have taken the dragon's eggs] says someone from the 20 or so neighbours.

The Monitor interviewed some of the police personnel who attended to Moeti. They  corroborated her story on an anonymous basis but said; ' only the boss can talk to the media'. 

Molepolole Police Station Commander, Andrew Bosilong was not available for comment when The Monitor team visited his office.

However an officer who spoke on condition of anonymity said that Moeti had come to the police station to make a statement. The police would also take the chicken feet to relevant authorities for testing. However the police had still not taken the now rotting chicken feet from Moeti when The Monitor called her the following day.