Looming Change
Kneeling in the wet soil next to his family's hut, Machuei Muriel helps his father castrate a bull. He is 11. He looks serious as he and a couple of other boys hold down the animal's wildly twitching legs. His father stretches the white skin taut and slices with a razor blade, spurting blood on the ground. The bull bellows in pain.
The Dinka castrate a bull when it is not a desirable shape or color for breeding. Instead, it is used for decorative ceremonies, its horns gradually twisted into elaborate curves. The bulls with the nicest horns are offered as part of a wedding dowry.
The operation completed, Muriel Makuei Gong pats his son's back in praise. Then they collect dung ash to place on the wound. It will ease the bull's suffering, the father explains.
Gong has just taught his son an essential skill.
"I teach him how to care for his cattle for the benefit of his own life, to be able to make marriage and offer up the right types of cows when the time is right," he says.
Nearby, small children are tending young cows in a sort of cattle kindergarten. An old, wrinkled man pads through the camp with a calf slung around his neck. Older boys wander back from the marshy wetlands, where they have taken cattle to graze.
"Everyone has their role to play in cattle camp," Gong says. He acknowledges that it is a tough life. "But here you also see things that make you happy, like cattle giving birth," he says. "I can teach him that."
Still, Gong knows this time with his son may be fleeting. He's heard that the new government will fine parents who don't send their children to school. Some parents at camp have said they will just pay the fee and keep the children at their sides.
But Gong says he believes in change, even if it comes with sadness.
Their world is a remote, neglected place without cars or farm machines, with few clinics or schools.
His family owns more than 100 cattle, making them prosperous. He feels it is time to take a risk.
"Machuei is intelligent with cattle. But he can learn more things in school. Soon it won't be my choice," he says to the boy, who nods and smiles. His elder son, who is about 17, is already at school, reading and doing figures. He likes it.
Life in a Sudanese Cattle Camp