The story continues with the feeding (see earlier blogs). Feeding Alie, Rinus, Anna and Bom was my task. For the afternoon snack I collected half a bucket of acorns along the street. They looked like vacuum cleaners, quickly hovering up the spread around acorns. For dinner they first ate some bananas, spread around again to make it possible for me to reach the feeding hod with cooked potatoes. The moment the potatoes hit the hod they stormed at it to be the first. The second round of soaked muesli in milk ended in my a narrow escape from being run over.

A proverb goes like ‘one pig won’t get fat’. Alone, they eat gently from your hand. It is the peer group which makes the pigs extremely competitive. How human. Among peers they aggressively have to assert themselves. It reminded me of someone’s story. Growing up in a family with ten kids in the early sixties, the fiancées of bigger sisters were put to the test at the dinner table. Leaving the precious meat for the last bite they always found an empty plate once their fork finally reached out for it.

Alie, is the leader of this small group and therefore the biggest. Anna is the smallest. She is always struggling to get enough. She only eats when she has assured herself that no one is coming after her. When I threw in some spread around bread pieces she just ate one, walking around with it searching a safe place while the others were grabbing the next pieces coming from me.