Of Cow Tales and Cocks

Nancy — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 16:43:00 +0000

In the absolutely random world we know as Peace Corps the odd or merely unusual is not far from our doorstep. Sometimes, it is ON the doorstep, but not this time. These are mostly tales of cows with a rooster thrown in for good measure. The cows here in Uganda are unusual; except for the occasional Brahmin, most that we see are Ankoli – with beautiful, long (sometimes 3.5 feet) rather bowlegged horns. You’ll find a picture of a herd at the end of my alley on Nancy’s Pics. The Roosters (a term never used – it’s “Cock” here), are – well – obnoxious and deserve whatever fate befalls them – hopefully a stew-pot. And not mine, thank you. These are some tough birds.

Back to cows… Recently, one PCV reported that he’d hung his hammock outside and run off to do an errand. Rounding the corner to his humble abode, he returned to discover an Ankoli bull with a nice set of horns doing battle with the hammock, having pretty well torn it to shreds. Bull – 1 Hammock – 0

Then there was the one who ate – or at least tried to eat, the hoodie belonging to a young Australian volunteer near Gulu. He’d done his laundry, hung it on the line and gone about his business. When he returned later, the cow was feasting on what remained of his hoodie. Only the tail end of it was hanging out of the cow’s mouth. He’d had trouble with cow’s sucking on his laundry during dry season, but not devouring it. Ugandan by-standers rescued the hoodie (and maybe the cow…) by pulling it (yeeees….) back out of the cow, the hoodie now boasting tooth marks and a goopy mix you might expect coming up from inside a cow’s seven stomachs. Don’t think he’ll be wearing that anymore, but it’s a helluva souvenir. You can’t make this stuff up.

Another volunteer, probably gone by now, reported waking up from a nap to a cow standing over her in bed and nuzzling her while she slept. Hmmmm – Instinctively, she grabbed a book on the bed at whacked it on the nose and watched it gallumph away and out of the house. Makes mine about the bull who wandered through the door in the gate to my house, grazed his way around the yard until finally being chased out by his exhausted herder – tame. Unless you are the herdsman who was seen still chasing this bull a half-hour later down the streets of Gulu. Probably all in a days work.

Language also presents some interesting conversational results, meaning nothing untoward here, but none-the-less pregnant with possibilities in the American-English lexicon. One conversation with a Villager looking for his – cock: “Madam, madam! Have you seen my cock? No I can’t say that I have. Where do you think it is? It is the bush I think! Really? Whose bush? Yes – it is in your bush… Can you help me find it?”

You might ask how these tales come to me… Well, it’s Peace Corps and we are hungry for relevance of any kind: being relevant, hearing something relevant, construing something that is totally irrelevant into something that is somehow relevant. And not unlike being being a little stoned, to survive in PC means being able to turn into absurd in funny – or relevant – or at least entertainment. So – recently in conversation I’m sure must have been terribly relevant (these only last so long amid the interruptions of our ambient insanity here) a couple of these tidbits came to me from “The Cock Whisperer,” a moniker bestowed on a young PCV after she quelled the early morning crowing of a noisy cock by whispering “sssshhhhhhh” out her window.

THE END – or in local vernacular: IT IS FINISHED

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Of Cow Tales and Cocks