“Till then they had been crowing and flapping their wings threateningly. But now, craning forward and moving their heads up and down, or gyrating them with their beaks still touching, they fell silent: stream-lined instruments of destruction on stilts, glaring at each other through wary, bloodshot and ferocious eyes. Their remaining neck feathers stiffened into ruffs, and then, slowly turning inside out as their anger rose, surrounded the purposeful heads in bristling funnels of plumage.” (Patrick Leigh Fermor 1950)

Cock fights are probably illegal in Europe (are they?). This strikes me as enormous hypocrisy given the institutionalised inhumanity of industrialised farming practices compared to the various pastimes which involve moments of cruelty in otherwise relatively free and unfettered lives of Dominican animals. I say ban battery farms and let a few cocks fight. But let’s leave this debate for another time as it was far from my mind when visiting the cock-pit, or club gallistico in Haitian dominated Fiusi, just down the road from Bavaro. It was one of the most entertaining experiences of my time in the DR this year. Sorry grandma, but it’s true, and for your sake I will spare you the details, although the details are fascinating.

Anyway, one Monday, Manolo, Manolo’s mother Ana, Belto and his son and daughter Yahaira and Kelin persuaded Menno to leave work early to go to the club (pronounced “clu”) with Juan and his cockerel. Juan is one of the El Cabo seguridad, who sits in a hut all day outside the village, always with a red cockerel under his arm. So off we went, the 7 of us, in a state of high excitement to the clu! The clu was a round auditorium with ranked plastic seats, a sandpit in the middle and chicken wire round the outside and a thatched roof. We arrived at 2.30, which Juan said was late. This surprised me as I have never heard a Dominican refer to lateness before. Nevertheless we sat for a good hour or two in the colmado bar opposite and drank beer and then wandered over to the ring. So I am not sure what we were late for.

Peripheral to the cock pit were all kinds of gambling tables – dice games on painted boards, and small huts with more dice games going on inside. Manolo and Kelin disappeared into the fray. Miraculously enough however, the ambiance was very relaxed and I joined in a few rounds of doubles (and won DR$20 – about 50 eurocents –it would have been bad form for a foreigner to clear the table). This was the first occasion to throw away your money.

The second opportunity came after the cock weighing. This seemed like a tense business – you have to make sure your cock is pitted against another of similar weight. It doesn’t matter how fat your cock is, as long as it is fighting against equal fatness. This was also where the betting was done and to be honest I have no idea how it all worked. We just handed cash over to Manolo, a frugal amount compared to the weeks and weeks worth of wages Manolo, Belto and Kelin were forking out. Ana petitioned Menno for cash – “a loan” – a loan with no chance of repayment. Naturally out of loyalty we put all money on the Cabo cock.

At about 6 we entered the cockpit (and we were late arriving at 2.30!?), women allowed in for free – obviously the opposite rule applies than on ships. We got seats halfway up. Many others were craning their heads to look through the chicken wire from outside. I wondered whether it was going to be a bloody affair and whether I would be disgusted like Patrick Leigh Fermor who needed a stiff whisky and soda after his Haitian experience in 1950. Again the cocks were weighed in scales in the centre of the ring by two handlers. The judge then sprayed each cock with a substance that Belto said neutralised any poison saboteurs may have put on the birds to gain an advantage. He then produced a very angry cock from a bag he kept under his chair, and waved it threateningly in the beaks of the combatants to get them riled. I asked whether the cocks had names so that their supporters could call them. Juan looked at me like I was an idiot (I would have thought that walking around for months with a cockerel under your arm, stroking and massaging its fighting legs and tending to it 24 hours a day would at least merit giving it a name!). Apparently the are just called “rojo” (red) and “blanco” (white), depending on what leg band they are assigned in the ring (which was actually blue –another of those things which escaped me that day). When the fighting started, and I think we witnessed about 7 bouts from different couples, most of them followed the same pattern – the cocks, who are clearly very bellicose beasts by nature, fluffed up their neck feathers and executed strange leaps at each other’s heads and tried to peck each others eyes and necks. Mostly the fight ended when one just got tired and gave up. Tiredness, not lethal blows seems to stop the fighting. Yes, there was a bit of blood, but you could only really see this on the white cocks, and not on the red ones. When the cocks were released to fight, the third lot of betting took place – this was more ad hoc betting with spectators sitting around you. More than once I saw Belto yelling “blanco” and fix someone else yelling “rojo” and arranging a private bet.

The Cabo cock lost. This was obvious from the moment it strutted into the ring. It was not an entirely disgraceful fight, but blanco was just better. I was worried about this from the start. I thought about how upset people get when their football team loses, how the lost millions distress people and dampen the whole experience, how little the locals earn and how much they bet. I thought it could only end badly and I wished stupid rojo had won. No one seemed to care however, not Juan, not Manolo, not Kelin nor Ana, Belto, nor Yahaira. They just disappeared into the dice games again and bought more rounds of beer. When I asked them how they felt they jovially said that some you win and some you lose and then next time their cock would do better. In fact Manolo and Belto said rojo was going to lose before they even placed money on it – and still they placed money on it – not I think because cock-fighting is a very unpredictable sport – but just because they like betting – this was obvious from the fact that they really did spend all their wages on all sorts of games that afternoon, and lost it all, and seemed not in the slightest bothered about it.

The defeated cocks were sold cheaply outside to people for soup (more out of disgust of their owners than necessity I suspect), the winners taken home to train up for another day. Poor old rojo. Then we all climbed back in the truck and went to Beron for some more beers and dancing!