The SheepHerders

are pretty awesome. They are a group of three young guys from Senegal. They are from the Fula tribe which has a tradition of herding, albeit cows rather than sheep. These three guys move a large herd, and they are not the only ones in business. I wouldn’t have known any difference between one herd and the next, but since this group arrived in our compound I have seen two or three other groups out and about. I definitely recognize that they are different from the guys camping in our compound. When they come to a new village they approach the chief and ask if the village can accommodate them for a few days before they move on, our alkaloo directed them to our home. They sleep out on our communal bench under a big shade tree. At night they build a raging fire and cozy up next to it. Each morning they take the herd out and spend the day grazing them on all the land they can reach, not returning back home until night. One in the group actually speaks Mandinka, but I don’t ask him any questions. All of the knowledge I have about the herders I have from local opinion. It has taught me more about the prejudice people hold towards the unfamiliar more than anything factual about the herding. I have heard that these guys are outlawed in Senegal because the sheep destroy too much land so they’ve gone rogue in Gambia. While its probably true the sheep consume a lot of vegetation, there is a lot of local livestock that are happily performing the same destruction. I have also heard that these guys will assimilate (steal) local sheep and maybe even assimilate some other dry goods they find out and about. I can’t imagine though that living on the move and relying on new villages to house and feed you that these guys would be interested in taking anything from their hosts. All I have seen is that the local people come up to them wanting to buy animals, not demanding something they are missing. They only had a few nights in our compound, but each night I watched their fire, and I didn't need to talk to them at all to know I really liked them.

One of the shephards with a prized product