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In Southern Sudan, A Drive to Update The Image of Cows
Romeo Lomunyamoi's family has raised cattle for generations. "I am always very sorry to sell a cow," he said, voicing a sentiment hindering efforts to turn semiautonomous southern Sudan into an Argentine-style beef exporter.
(By Stephanie Mccrummen -- The Washington Post)
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According to government officials, part of the reason rests in the minds of people such as Pio Papa, who was lounging under a tree with other elderly herders one morning in the village of Kimotong, a sandy swath of straw huts and leafy shade trees down a lumpy dirt road.
Asked to recall the last time he had sold a cow for profit, Papa looked up, sideways and down, searching his memory.
"Never," he finally answered. "If I sell a cow, what will I eat? What would I do? These cows are just like the money you people have."
In pastoralist societies such as Papa's, cattle not only provide precious milk and meat. They also amount to a four-legged monetary, banking, insurance and social security system.
Cows are used for dowries, the traditional negotiated payment that a young man's family makes to that of his bride and that weaves extended families together over generations.
A cow might be used to settle a dispute or as a kind of savings account. In one traditional practice, a family might give a bull to another family, with the expectation that in coming years it would be repaid in cows, with interest.
Accordingly, a family that sells cows in large numbers is generally viewed as poor or foolish.
"If you are a man without cows, people will overlook you. You are nothing," said Marko Lomana, a relative of Papa's. "And you will never get a wife."
There are acceptable reasons for selling a cow or two: to buy sacks of grain to avert hunger, for medicine to treat sick cows, and, increasingly, to pay children's school fees. "There must be a legitimate purpose," Lomana said.
Even in dire situations, though, the decision to sell involves long discussions with family members, all of whom must agree.
"The last time we sold one was to take a sick child to the hospital," said Lokwar, a herder who was ushering a flock of several hundred cattle across a field.
"It was quite a long deliberation. It was too slow -- it took five days to decide. Finally, we sold Olochoma," he said, referring to a black-and-white spotted heifer.
