Only after this was all done were we, by that I mean the holders of tickets purchased at the-gate-, allowed to step into the fighting hall. Like in every civilized country, there are rules in DR that have to be followed and that means NO BEERBOTTLES and NO GUNS on the premises. That is why we all got little plastic cups to pour our beer into, and the referee’s assistant had made us the honour of collecting all the guns to keep them safe until after the afternoon was over. Lovely fellow, really—he let me take pictures of himself with some of the guns under his belt!

The seats were tiny, but I could have been dead sure that no one would take my spot. My chair had the same number as the ticket and I sure got a prime seat, comparable with the box seats at a hockey game, but here I could literally touch the players if I dared. There were nine fights scheduled and my little boy was going to fight last.

Wrestling on TV is cool and all, and so are those really neat videogames where you get to blow other peoples’ heads off, but this was way beyond any of my expectations. This was eye for an eye, and life for being smaller and weaker. You cannot be a chicken to witness this kind of a massacre!

At first, I was mesmerized with the battle itself and the complete cruelty of it, then I focused my attention on all the people around me, crowded and excited, screaming and shouting one over the other. An interesting level of empathy flooded my brain, and I realized I felt and was one of them, in this place taken by the same excitement I could not deny. The blood was gruesome, but the intoxicating atmosphere of people in their traditional enjoyment of a sunny afternoon in this beautiful tropical country, where so many things were hard to comprehend for someone from an entirely different culture, and this just seemed like an ordinary occasion of people gathering to enjoy the company of their friends or rivals. The impression I got was very warm and friendly, just like a bunch of buddies at a hockey game watching the players lose their teeth and eyes, get cuts and scrapes, with everyone leaving at the end of the game feeling happy about how they got their money’s worth and had a good time.

Well, under these circumstances and under the pressure of having had proudly bet 1,000pesos on my cock, when it came to the moment of truth and climax of my entire encounter with this barbaric tradition, I was shouting and encouraging my cock to make me proud and show them all that he will not be shamed for a full minute and a half, which is as long as he lasted. The next time I saw him he was headless and featherless: a clean and ready dinner…just put him in the oven and put a bottle of wine on the table—delicious.

How did I find this cruelty in me? And is it really cruelty? Is it not just plain ignorance to judge a different culture for their habits and traditions like we enjoy doing so much and so often?  It’s sure ethical to ban all activity resembling this kind of debauchery, but what right do any of us have to do such a thing? And are we any better than any other culture is? We still buy those Nike shoes even though we know kids that should really be at school made them, but if it ends up costing us less, let’s steal their childhood. But that is not for me to judge either. I have learned the path of non-judgment and respect for cultural differences, on my own skin and forced into it through my own misconceptions and hypocrisy. I will challenge you now. Can you look at the people here through my photographs without judging them and seeing them as barbarians?