Thoughts Of A Cattle Driver

If you had asked me 5 years ago what I would be doing in 5 years, I wouldn’t know what to tell you.  5 years ago was September 13^th, 2008.  I was a freshman in college, Varun hadn’t yet moved into my dorm (Hi Varun).  I was an undeclared major taking an English class, a Political Science class, a Math class, and a Chemistry class.  I clearly had no idea what I wanted to do.  And you know what?  I still don’t.  But if you had told me 5 years ago that in 5 years I would be a farmer, herding cattle, I wouldn’t have believed you.  For obvious reasons.  I mean, who herds cattle anymore?  Are there any cowboys left or is it just huge industrialized farms?  I actually don’t know.  This wasn’t a rhetorical question, if you could let me know in the comments or something, it would be appreciated.

So my friends and family ask me what I do here in Senegal.  You know, like on a day to day basis.  I guess in the long run I’m supposed to be involved in bottom-up, community driven, capacity building, sustainable (and all those other fun Peace Corps catch-phrases) development.  But that is not my reality on a day-by-day basis.  I am a farmer.  Through and through.  I wake up in the morning, eat breakfast, and then go out into the fields.  Each member of my family has their own field, even the women.  It is interesting that in a society that has such great disparages in gender equality, when it comes to farming it’s very egalitarian.  The women own fields, they plant their fields, and they tend their fields. 

In my village there are three crops: corn (kaaba), peanuts (tiga), and rice (maaro).  When I say that I go out into the fields, I think I might be too generous to myself, because I actually do very little work.  It’s like my family sees me as being completely incapable, which is understandable because I have the language prowess of a kindergartner.  So I’ll go out and plant a few peanuts, and then they’ll say something along the lines of “good for you, you can stop now”.  I try not to let their seemingly belittling words get to me.

Just some notes on vocab:

To plow: barugol

To plant: awugol

To till (I still have no idea what tilling is): ussugol

To find your cattle: dappitugol na’i

To herd you cattle: soggugol (ACHA!!)

To tie up your cattle: hummugol na’i

To sit in your field all day to protect the corn from being eaten by the cattle: aynugol

 I said earlier in this post that I was a farmer.  This isn’t entirely true.  In reality, I’m a cattle-herder.  

look close, there's a rainbow!

As you can see, my language is very cow-driven.  People hear me talking about all these specific Pular verbs and are like “wow, you’re really good at Pular”.  Not so!!!! I just have a very specific cow-specific vocabulary. 

Every evening I go out to the cows.  Literally, that’s what it’s called.  When someone asks you “ko honto yahata? (where are you going?)” The response is “mido yahude ka na’i (I’m going to the cows)”.  So we go out to the bush to find our cows and then herd them back to an allotted area near the soccer field.  This is where we tie up the cows.  You might ask, “how do you tie up the cows”.  I thought the same thing the first time I went out to the cows.

Basically, there are stakes drilled into the ground that have ropes attached to them.  When the cows are driven in you tie the rope around their horns.  This of course is to keep the cows in one place during the night so they don’t wander around and eat people’s corn.  Apparently there’s a village rule where if someone’s cows eat someone else’s corn, they are entitled to monetary compensation.  So anyway, the hard part is keeping the cows still.  In order to do this, you have to reach out your hand palm up.  The cows think that you have salt in your hand, so they walk over.  Once they are close enough, you shoot out a hand and grab one of their horns. 

[Disclaimer: cows do not like this.]

But in all seriousness, the cows are pretty docile.  They’ll try to tug away, but they won’t try to run you down.  I of course didn’t know this the first time I tried to tie up the cows, and it was a rather terrifying experience.  Sometimes when the cow is really not having it you have to use both hands and drag the cow over to the rope.  I won’t lie, it does make me feel pretty manly literally manhandling cattle.  Seriously, I grab the bull by the horns.  Once the cow is tied up, you move onto the next.

Interesting note about cows #1: All the cattle are tied up at the same place every night.  Sometimes I try to tie up the wrong cow and get yelled at by my host brothers.  You might be thinking to yourself, “why does it matter so long as all the cows get tied up?”  I have no idea, it’s really important to them though

.

Interesting note about cows #2: The cows know where their tie up spot is.  This means that when you are herding them, once you get to the tie-up area they generally go to the spot they’re supposed to be tied up.  Seriously, they’re pretty smart.

Interesting note about cows #3: All of our cows have individual names, and everyone in my family knows them by name.  It’s pretty funny hearing my host mom yell at Aysatu for being a lazy cow.  It’s true though, she is lazy.

Interesting note about cows #4: Cows have personalities.  Seriously.  I haven’t gotten to know all of my cows yet, but some of them are little calibantes (rascals).  For instance, Ibu always tries to get tied up in the wrong place until you realize it’s the wrong cow and ACHA! him.  Then he’ll go back to his spot.  I honestly think that he’s trying to get closer to Aysatu, there’s clearly something going on between the two of them.  It might be sort of one-sided though, it’s obvious that Ibu is into Aysatu, but I’m not sure if she realizes it yet.

I spend too much time with cows.