Like Sheep Without a Shepherd

In case you’re wondering, I’m not obsessed with livestock or wildlife. I just happen to live at the foot of Ngong Hills, neighbouring the Maasai and all their livestock. In fact, they used to occupy this area until Nairobi City expanded, pushing them farther up the hills. 

So as you can imagine, every so often (quite often to be honest), the Maasai eye the greened estates full of drainage water and can’t help bringing their animals that way for a treat… Sometimes the dry season means the grasslands and the river beds dry out, necessitating this move to where water and green can still be found. In our case this becomes the neighbouring estates, Karen and Langata included. In fact, if not stopped, they would go all the way to the City centre!

Now just as we made to take the sudden dip that signifies our home stretch, we noticed this white truck stalled diagonally across the road. No vehicle, except the cyclists, was going to fit in the small space left on the road. So we sighed (it was raining heavily) and moved back onto the main road heading for the next alternative exit road. This particular one was quite rocky, having recently been redone and no one seemed to think it essential to beat and smooth out the rocks. Still it would have to do.

We hadn’t gone far before we noticed the large herd ahead. In the midst of the heavy downpour, two young lads clad in simple rainproof coats led the livestock along the road – and I mean ALONG the road. They didn’t even turn as we approached. It seemed we were going to have to trail behind the cattle for the 300 metres or so. But my husband and I were not buying that idea so we hooted for the lads to drive the livestock onto the roadside. I mean they didn’t need to be all over the road, did they?

One of the lads came to our rescue and started nudging the animals forward and out of the road. But then, as fate would have it, the cattle in front decided to pull a fast one and dashed sideways into a compound with a partly abandoned building-under-construction. They were after all here to look for green grass, weren’t they? And this looked like a perfect spot. So they tore into the compound and into the building. Poor lad, fancy having to drive cows and bulls out of several rooms in an abandoned building… Sounds like a scene from one of those dark treasure hunt stories!

Meanwhile here we were, hoping to be rescued so we can proceed with our journey. The lad was too busy thinking about his cattle to even remember us, let alone care. (You need to understand you can’t separate a Maasai from his livestock!) So my husband busied himself behind the wheel trying to nudge the animals along. Some of the sheep had long followed after the cows and the shepherd into the compound, but many more sheep remained on the road, now seemingly paralyzed. They stood still, immovable and immobile, not even pretending to see the car that attempted to drive through a few centimeters behind them! 

He hooted, my poor man, but to no avail. If you know anything about sheep, their folly borders on sheer stubbornness. I knew little about sheep till I moved to Ngong, but now I’ve observed them so much I’ve enough material for a serialization…

My husband had a solution for the sheep… push them a little (with the car!), and they will move - men! In the meantime I pleaded and begged as he proceeded to do just that, ‘Stop please, don’t. Don’t push them, look, there’s a little kid under its mama. You’ve got to stop that…’ On and on I went as I imagined the pretty little kids running under the car and….ouch! Never mind the wrath of the lads should we actually run over any of the animals…

By now the sheep had crowded and formed themselves into a line right down the middle of the road for a distance of about fifty metres. And they were standstill, going nowhere..! Fancy having to drive through that… There was not enough space on either side to dodge them – we needed help or we too would be herding cattle for a while here.

 ‘Just a little,’ my husband insisted and pushed a few more centimeters. Behind us, the second lad stood in the rain, as immobilized as the sheep. He had long abandoned all effort to shepherd the animals still on the road, neither was he helping his friend back in the abandoned building. By now I had had enough. Looking behind through the rear window, I gestured crazily at him to come and get the animals out of the road. Thankfully he understood and did come to help. The poor lad was drenched in rain and I think he had lost all the will to fight or help. But he did respond to my furious waving and gesturing.

Somehow he succeeded in nudging the animals to one side just enough for us to pass, and soon the chaos and animal jam was behind us. I couldn’t see the first lad anywhere, God only knows how long it took him to herd all his cattle out of that building. 

What had started out as one obstacle in way of a stalled truck had grown into several obstacles along our route home. Sometimes life is like that. Just when you think you have everything figured out, things fall apart… Our solutions soon develop unforeseen problems of their own - none more so than sheep without a shepherd…!