Children of Sudan's Cattle Camps

"I feel worry because he's working without my care," she says. "When a person is educated, life is easier."

Bakic's grandmother dismisses such worries, saying he is a "strong and courageous boy." The two women start to hum a family song that compares Bakic to his great-grandfather, a skilled cattle herder. In fact, every ancestor Bakic can remember was a cattle herder.

But Bakic is still a boy trying to do a man's job. A few days later, exhausted from the heavy, constant work, he seems to have reached his limit. Herding a group of cows into an auction pen, he gets hit in the eyes by a horn. Minutes later, some older men accuse him of losing a cow, and a fight breaks out.

"For God's sake . . . I don't have your cow," he shouts, his eyes filling with tears.

Recently, Bakic says, he had a dream. "It starts with the cows escaping. I am running through the forest, looking for my lost cows. I can't find them," he says. "Then I go to sleep. I don't care anymore."

Bakic knows there is a new school in Rumbek, and he wonders if he should go. The auction house manager has told the young herders they need an education to become rich, and he imagines working as a trader, or perhaps at a radio station. But his family has no money and needs him to do what he calls "my small works" to support them.

"When I am tired, I do think of schooling. . . . Sometimes I concentrate when the schoolchildren write letters in the sand," he says. At the moment, though, what he really longs for is new clothes. "I would love some pants," he says.

Bakic's friend Mangui Yuot talks about going to the new school in Rumbek. He says he told his father there would be free lunch, provided by the United Nations, so the father has agreed.

Bakic, ignoring his friend, continues working.

"Are you going to join us?" Yuot asks.

"I can't," the boy answers, lighting a pyramid of dung. "Not yet."