The Small Five

The Small Five The country of Malawi is the home to a various amount of unique and diverse animals. The most popular animals in the country are known as “The Big Five”. This group comprises of lions, hippos, elephants, rhinos and buffalos. These animals are beautiful, huge and powerful. Found in game reserves, national parks and animal sanctuaries. I am glad to say that I will not run into any of them on my way to the local market. There are other animals that I always seem to run into every day though and watch in enjoyment as they live their lives. These are live stock. As a person who did not live on a farm it is an interesting experience to live among animals (besides cats and dogs) that walk around freely. Even in college the only farm animal that I would see outside of the university from an extremely far distance were cows. Inspired by a t-shirt that I saw another Malawi Peace Corps volunteer wearing I wanted to describe my experience living among ‘The Small Five’. The t-shirt along with the group’s name depicted a chicken, duck, goat, pigeon and rabbit. Since I have no experiences with pigeons and rabbits while I have been here I will talk about sheep and cows. 1. Chickens A natural alarm clock, every morning a rooster screeches it’s “Good morning!” into my home. It’s a sign that my day should begin. Quite frequently I ignore it and resume sleeping. It was surprising to learn that roosters also make this sound in the middle of the day. There is a presence of pride among the fowl. They are lone wolves strutting and spreading their wings. It’s as though they’re big and bad until you walk near them. Then they go from being the boss to well . . . little chickens. The hens move around single, grouped with other females or one is with her chicks. A bunch of baby chicks are one of the cutest things I’ve ever seen in my live. They come in different colors and patterns of yellow, black, white and brown. Their little legs move fast to keep up with their mother. Mama bird will look around and move toward her young to make sure the babies keep up and are safe. Sometimes chickens even walk into the classroom while I am teaching. I enjoy chasing them out. 2. Ducks I never knew people domesticated ducks. I hope I am not the only one. Ducks I’ve seen here are black with some small splashes of white or vice versa. They are like every other ducks that you would see, except for one distinctive feature. When they become older they grow bright red masses on their faces. It is as interesting as it is bizarre. The masses continue to grow. After becoming a witness to this I will not complain about face pimples ever again. 3. Goats Goats have always given me a slight discomfort. It’s their slanted eyes, the sound that they make and sometimes they stare and follow me with their eyes. In my opinion there are three types of sounds goats make. The first is mild, nothing out of the ordinary. The second strangely sounds like a small child, which is eerie. The third is what I would consider being the sound of one witnessing something horrific. It’s an intense shrieking noise. This has been more affective at getting me out of bed than the roosters have. When I had first arrived in my village my neighbors put all of their goats on my land. It is a really big field and most people don’t like to have grass around their homes. At before I did not like this, especially with the wake up calls. After a while I had started to realize that the goats, though annoying weren’t really hurting me. In fact, they were helping my land. After a while I have become fine with all of the sounds and have learned not to be so gruff. 4. Sheep Sheep here are mostly brown with white splotches or vice versa. Their wool is not billowy like ones we usually would think of. They have short wool. They have droopy ears and long floppy tails. Once I was watching some goats and a flock sheep interacting. It kind of looked like a fight. They were head budding each other. There was a goat in the group of the sheep and when the budding was over it went off with the sheep. It was a strange situation. 5. Cows Cows are used for just not food but labor. They are used to pull ox carts to transport things. I have seen at least at a minimum thirty cows being herded at once. People walk them through the village, and down streets. They also walk them through public areas like schools, churches and markets. Most people do not have cows because they cost more than most can afford. Throughout the day I maneuver pass cow pies with ease and rarely have step in one. These animals are what people rely on for food and work. They contribute as important and normal additions to people’s way of life. Living among them has shown me that they are more than just food, they have lives too.