Animals at the home

Cow at the market

There are many animals in Nimule.  Goats are in the majority, followed by cattle.  The cattle are considerably smaller than European cattle.  There are also sheep, which are far less attractive than their British equivalents.  They have very little wool and large fat tails, generally covered in muck.  The goats by contrast are beautiful with lovely markings.  All these animals wander around freely, often deciding to stop and sit down in the middle of the main road from Uganda to Juba, causing major disruption to the petrol tankers and motorcycles which form the majority of traffic here.

At the home itself, I found a cow with very impressive horns named Sara, with her new-born calf.  There is a magnificent rooster and a collection of hens who are sometimes chased and killed for dinner.  There is a very forlorn dog called JP, who leads ‘a dog’s life’, much hated by all apart from the American Fulaa members.  I am no dog-lover, but even I cringe when I see how he is treated. 

The cow

A fortnight ago the cow and calf vanished without trace or comment from anyone.  I have now discovered that the cow is part of a herd belonging to the children’s home which lives further up the mountain.  She makes her own way to Cornerstone whenever she is ill or heavily pregnant.  She waits until she and the calf are ready to travel before making the reverse journey.  She is the only cow in the herd that does this.

Until last week the scene at the home and school was dominated by large numbers of goats and their kids, who came into the children’s home at night leaving piles of droppings everywhere. 

Then, at the beginning of one school day all the older children were asked to throw the goats out of the grounds.  They spent a happy half hour running around after the animals, herding them towards the gates.  It was a very amusing scene.  It turned out that most of the goats are intruders, taking advantage of an open gate to make their unofficial home here.  Apparently they do have homes elsewhere, although given the length of time they have lived here, they probably don’t remember that. 

Two of the home goats

During the course of the day, the goats gradually filtered back in through the open gate.  The next morning the usual piles of goat dung were in the corridors of the children’s home.  The campaign continued, but this time the children from the children’s home were told to check which belonged to the home, tie them up and report how many actually belonged there.  There are sixteen, including kids and one ram.  These goats now have ropes tied permanently around their necks to avoid them being chased away.

Today's dinner

A couple of days ago, during devotions (!!!), the pastor told the children to catch and kill the ram at the weekend for dinner.  This morning I watched as the older boys led the ram.  I was worried that the killing would be unsupervised and inexpert, and was relieved when the caretaker turned up and instructed them.  The ram was killed by having its throat slit.  Thankfully it was over very quickly and soon they were draining the blood into a large cooking pot.

Apart from the episode of the goats which I have just described, livestock are largely ignored by the human inhabitants.  If animals get too close, people throw pebbles at them.  There is no animal husbandry practised, even when the cow was clearly suffering an infection after giving birth.  Fortunately it cleared up by itself as there is no vet in Nimule.  This is not surprising as, even for humans, there is only one doctor in the hospital.

I find the neglect of animals very surprising in a country area where they could be a valuable part of the economy.  Animals and humans lead parallel lives which are very separate, with animals either ignored or treated as unwanted.  I can understand that people don’t go to the western extreme of treating animals better than their fellow humans.  In a poor country people must be pragmatic.  However total neglect is the other extreme.