 | This weekend forced me to break from reports and resumes, filling the vacancies that I'd created through my lofty planning to find some refuge at the end of a boda ride to farm. My friend Tony, actually the boyfriend of a collegue, but we're all friends here, has been inviting me out to his farm to see his cows for weeks now and I finally gave way. I thought I was going out alone and woke up early, showered with the joy of finding the water cold, and when I came back my roomate was gearing up as well. So we took off, this time on the back of a motorcycle driven by Tony through small footpaths to avoid the pounding dust left by the lories on the main road. The tall grass smacked my legs and arms as wove around holes and people in the typical boda fashion. We spun through fields and even a eucalyptus grove with trees rushing past each side and drove into the country a while.
Tony's farm started at a small gathering of huts where a couple of women were savagly beetings dried stalks, gleening the rice from the stems and gathering them on the ground. The first cow Tony showed, with such emmense pride, was his newly purchased milk cow. I'm not sure how polite it would be to state the price, so suffice to say that it cost considerably more than I have spent on anything out here, and Tony touched it and cared for it, giving her medicine and talking about his plans for the shed he'd built for her. When I ask Tony about his cows, if he is worried about them, or anything else he almost always responds, "So I love them so much." I couldn't imagine investing that, the money into something alive like that for my future. As I picture it, I would worry considerably about the wellbeing of these creatures whom I depended on for my own livelihood. The slightest sickness, a drought, anything like that would not only hurt them but threaten me as well.
I was thinking about all of that as we walked past a couple of corrals to find where the cows had gathered. Tony walked up to the heardsman, an elderly man with his boy standing a few paces behind, quietly waiting for something that I couldn't imagine happening soon. The man was watching a cow who had seperated some from the others. Tony explained it had given birth several months early the previous night. The result, a crumpled head of bones and fur that must have at one time been a calf, lay in the grass next to a spot matted down showing that the cow had probably slept there the night before.
The brown cow, still a mother by her own description occiasionally walked up to the folded body and licked it on occaision, seemingly attempting to clean it or provoke it out of sleep. When she wasn't tending her calf, she walked around in what Tony would describe as pain. The sad birth had also failed to force the entire placenta from the cow and resulted in her walking around with only half of it expunged from her body. I tried not to imagine the pain or the sadness of the event as I watched her attempt to relieve the situation. Thankfully, a process of water and salt eventually caused the mass to be pushed out and some respite was offered her.
The salvation of all of this was that Tony was not a destitute rancher with only one or two cows to subsist on. He and his uncle had quite a herd and many of them were healthy and walking around the hills above us. The terror of what would be meant if that were not the case would have been so much worse, if all hope had been staked on that calf being born in January or December, on a new life providing new revenue. Instead, we were lucky, Tony and ourselves. We got to rest from that sight by walking up to the other cows and playing with one called coocoo ("chew chew"). Coocoo is a distinct favorite of another friend and for obvious reasons. She offers herself in quite a friendly disposition, eager to be pet, and eager to lick the hands and pants of anyone who wants to enjoy her company. The thick roughness of her tounge, almost sharp, made everyone laugh and almost forget. She allowed us to return to the huts and play a couple of rounds of convoy before heading off further down the road to enjoy a nice ride past the fading green at the end of the wet season. I was glad for her because I didn't have to think so much about life and death and pain, and I could just enjoy the ride and the rest for a while, even coughing through the dirt and the bumps in the road.
All of us at Tony's farm
The heardsman and his boy
Tony
Me and Coocoo |
