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April 18, 2006

The two-legged pig

In Gorom-Gorom there is a two-legged pig. Its back legs are useless, but it manages to scurry around the streets every day, looking for food, its front legs going full-tilt, dragging its rear end behind it.

Apparently, the pig did once have four fully-functioning legs. But one day it got into a Fulani yard - maybe into the food even, and the Fulani gave the pig such a thrashing, its rear legs were permanently damaged.

The Fulani detest pigs.

Pigs then and now
When I first moved to Gorom-Gorom, most people there had never seen a pig. I remember some young men discovering a picture book of the story Jesus told of the Prodigal Son. There is a bit where the son has lost all his money and ends up taking a job feeding pigs - a situation as repellant for the Muslim Fulani as for the Jew. The story is a great parable of how, when we have made a mess of our lives, we can still come back to God. He is waiting to embrace us and welcome us back home.

In the book there is this picture of the son sitting disconsolately among the pigs. My friends were looking at the animals and trying to decide what they were - dogs? goats?

"No", I explained, "they are girooji - pigs."
They were intrigued, and they looked more intently at the picture.
"Ohhh! Is that what pigs look like...?"

Today, many pigs roam the streets of Gorom-Gorom, brought to the area and bred by people of other tribes and regions who have come to Gorom for work. They are seen bathing in the mud outside people's latrines, or in the ponds where the cows come to drink - much to the disgust of the Fulani. The pig is unclean - both literally, and religiously - for the Fulani. Finding it with its snout in your cooking pot might well put you off your dinner, but if you were a Fulani, it could drive you, well, to beat the hind legs off it.

The Fulani really don't like pigs.

To market, to market...
Once I was with my friend John at Gorom-Gorom cattle market. We were dressed in local clothes, and, partially hidden by our turbans and robes, went un-noticed by the tourists wandering around in their shorts and t-shirts, sweaty pink flesh exposed for all to see, oblivious to how inappropriately they were dressed.

Suddenly John nudged me, and pointed. There was a decidedly overweight tourist, sweat staining his shorts and t-shirt. Across the front of his t-shirt was a banking logo and advert. In large letters, right across his chest, was the word "GIRO".

Fortunately for him perhaps, he couldn't have realised that "giro" is the Fulani word for pig...

Tags: africa burkina burkina faso travel pigs sahel fulani

Posted by Keith at April 18, 2006 06:21 PM