Cows at Lunch

Wednesday, August 31, 2005


Almost immediately after the border into Tanzania, I felt like I was in a different country both geographically and culturally.

There were rugged hills and strange, lumpy rock formations. We saw different kinds of trees, and fields planted with different crops, like cassavas, that we hadn't seen before.

And the houses, mostly square and wooden or aluminum in Kenya, were almost universally round, mud-bricked, and thatch-roofed here in Tanzania. We characteristically saw little clusters of these houses bunched together.

At noon we stopped for lunch by the side of the road. It was just a small dirt pull-off area, but it was located by a shallow river and was apparently a popular area for the local cow-herders to bring their animals through.

I said hello and gave lollipops to two young children, a boy and a girl, holding long wooden switches and guiding their dun-coloured cows through the grassy area next to our lunch-spot.

" Asante sana?, said Wayne, reminding them of their manners, but they just stared at him with big brown eyes and walked off silently with their cows, swinging their sticks.

Other cows soon appeared along the river-bank followed by a man, and later, when we were back on the road, we slowed to let a noisy herd of cattle go by.