Talking Cows, Talking Drums

Someone told me that they really like it when I post on my blog.


It's 11:45 pm.  I am listening to Jars of Clay, a band I love.  This mix happens to have some random spanish music included, which always makes me laugh when it starts playing.  I generally dance a little while working.

I just finished a large, yellow poster which is about our "Emotional Bank Accounts"... a way of explaining how we can have good, helpful relationships with one another, especially in leadership positions.  It's all part of the course I am giving next week.

Today, I took a walk down the road behind the community center.  I hadn't wandered back there yet, and had been curious for a while.  It's just a dirt road which meanders through cow pastures and past huge banana plantations.   I think I might start running there... but don't hold me to that. 

As I walked a long I saw a number of cows.  A very common site.  Eventually I met a herd coming towards me on the road, and decided that it was a good time to turn around and go home. 

Then the cows started ... talking.  Or... dying.  Basically making very strange and loud noises.  You know the expression "You sound like a dying cow" (it's a Gornik family favorite)... well, a dying or groaning cow, really has a very loud and strange sound.  And we use the phrase appropriately. ( Someday ask me to do an impression.)  I kept looking behind me to make sure that I wasn't going to be crushed by a stampede of upset cattle.  Thankfully no such event occurred.  They did, however, catch up with me.  I went to check out the new class room building at the school and the herd decided that coming down that trek was where they wanted to go.  I complemented the cattle keeper on his beautiful animals.  Cows can be shy/fearful, and these ones have horns you really don't want to mess with. 

I was reminded, when I heard the talking cows, of one of the most profound moments on my trip this summer.

We were sitting outside in a tiny village called Lowi (sp?) in S. Sudan.  We'd just showed the first film ever to be seen there, and I had done some serious star gazing and held an unspeakably beautiful baby.

Later, a good number of the team had gathered and were chatting.  During a lull in the conversation I heard them.  I got so excited!  The talking drums!   I had read about this in my research of Africa, but never expected to actually here it.  The village we were in was made up of small clusters of homes, spread out over a large area.  These "talking drums" were sort of like our nightly news.  They have different rhythms to tell about what had happened that day. 

"Ba baba BAB bab"=  "The cow had it's calf today"  ...that sort of thing.  (of course I don't speak S. Sudanese drum) 

I was so excited to hear this beautiful communication.  The rest of the team laughed at me and said I was silly or easily excited.  But for me... it was profound.

Will development remove these beautiful, intricate traditions and customs, found in few other places in the world?

I ask myself these questions sometimes, as I converse with kind cow keepers and listen to the daily gossip echoing off the mountains of S. Sudan.