Cow Boys

In these days of factory farming, we often forget what cowboys were for, and that getting cattle to market can be quite a complicated and slow process, especially in a country like the Congo. It’s one thing for the local farmer to put 20 cattle into a truck to take them to the local slaughterhouse ten miles away, but when there’s no slaughterhouse closer than about 250 kilometres it is a different story.

We came across this problem recently: Kolwezi has an ancient slaughterhouse. Though it is still used occasionally, it is truly horrifying in its lack of hygiene and respect for the feelings of the victims. There are no bulk cold storage facilities either. As a result, farmers in that region send their cattle all the way to Lubumbashi, where prices are higher and proper facilities exist.

But how? They may not have horses, but they can get boys, literally boys, whom they can hire for a dollar a day to drive the hapless cattle along the road all the way to Lubumbashi. They get together a gang of about twenty such boys, and tell them they’ll get paid when they reach the other end.

They have a difficult job, the boys, walking along these roads, having to find a village to get food and sleep at during the night, looking after a bunch of cross cattle who can’t see any reason why they should be made to walk so far, with hardly a scrap of grass to graze. They have to watch the cattle every inch of the way – if one goes missing it would be hard to imagine a punishment severe enough in the eyes of the farmer.

I believe it takes about ten days for them to complete the journey. By the time they reach their destination, the cattle have lost a lot of weight but at least there’s a market for them. But you can’t help wondering whether the suffering of both boy and beast is worth it.