Joseph Lemasolai Lekuton Read Free Page B

blessed cow. No one else. No one else but a member of your family is allowed to sleep on its hide either.
     
    IT’S CUSTOMARY for the men to take care of the cattle and the women to take care of the village. If you cameto the village during the day, you’d find only women and young children. The men and older boys would be out grazing cattle. But when they are very young, boys and girls work and play together.
    From about age five to about age seven, I went every day with a group of about a dozen boys and girls to take the young cows to get grass nearby, maybe a mile or so from the village.
    Even as little kids, we were smart. We’d drive the young cows to a place where we knew there was a lot of grass. We knew where the wild animals were, so we tried to avoid them. We let the calves graze, fill their bellies. While they ate, we played. But all the time we were watching. Our ears were always open for any danger.
    We were proud to be doing our job, but we were little kids. What we really liked to do was play. We boys practiced throwing our little stick spears. We pretended to be warriors. We wrestled in the dust. With the girls we played house. We would arrange rocks in a circle to make a hut. Then we’d pretend we were the parents. The boys would ask the typical questions an elder would ask his wife when he comes home.
    “Mama, how’s the evening? Did all the cows come home safely?”
    “Yes.”
    “Good. Are all the kids healthy?”
    “Yes.”
    “How about such-and-such cow, the one that is sick? How is he doing?”
    “He’s doing great. We treated him today, and it looks like he is going to get well.”
    “Uh-huh. Did you get any visitors today?”
    “Yes, your friend came to see you. He was in the neighborhood, only 20 or 30 miles away, so he walked over looking for you. I told him you weren’t here, but he said that’s fine, he will come back tomorrow. It’s only 20 miles. He needs to talk to you about something. Now sit down and have some tea.”
    Then we would sit in front of a stone and pretend we were eating our supper. The girl would bring me a little stick and we’d pretend it was a cup and go slurp, slurp, slurp.
    “Okay, I’m going now,” I’d say, “I have to attend an elders’ meeting. I’ll see you later.”
    Then the boys would sit together and pretend they were elders. We knew what to say because whenever the elders met, we were hiding in the bushes listening.
    “We have to move because this location is not good for our cows anymore,” one elder would say. “We have to move because three cows have died here.”
    Then the elders would discuss where to move. One elder would say, “Oh, I want to move to that big rock in the distance. That’s where my grandfather is buried. It is a very good area for cows.”
    Another would say, “No, that area is not very good because of this and this and this.” So they’d argue and argue until they reached agreement or disagreement. If the discussion ended in agreement, fine, everyone would move together. If it ended in disagreement, one group would move one place and another would move to another place. The elders always tried hard to reach an agreement, but if they couldn’t, they would go in different ways, but they would reunite at a later time. They would always stay friends.
    When we played, we were always checking on the little cows to make sure that none of them had wandered off. We all knew we’d be in big trouble if we lost one. Then around noon we brought them into the shade so they could sleep. Calves need to nap, just like people do. Once the cows were asleep, we knew they were safe, so we went back to our play.
     
    THE AFTERNOON always went so fast. Soon someone would say, “Where’s the sun? It’s getting late. Let’s take the cows home.” We were still imitating what the eldersdo. Women in this situation have no say. They just listen. The little girls did the same. They just followed the boys. So we drove our little cows