Most of the animals that Nyandarua farmers owned were inherited from the British colonists who owned the land before them. The farmers purchased the animals through the Cooperative Society. The animals were pampered by their former masters who had huge barns where the animals slept and sheltered from the rain. They had cattle dips and other necessary facilities for their animals, right there on their farms. Simply put, the farms were self sufficient. Then came the native owners who had no facilities on their farms and had to take their animals to wherever the services were provided.
Like most farms in OlKalou, our sheep never left our farm, unless for the shearing trip and the dip once a year. Their lives were pretty much routine. They left their pen (kiugu) in the morning, headed to the pasture for the day and returned to their pen at sunset. That was it. And then one day, without any notice, they were driven through the main gate, onto the rural “highway” and made to walk for two kilometers to the Cooperative Society Headquarters where the shearing took place.
Considering how docile sheep are, this was already stressful for them, being out there on the open road. I can imagine their thoughts “I knew nothing good was going to come from these new masters. How can they make us walk two kilometers, haven’t they noticed how short our legs are, they are not made for walking long distances?”. Then they face a bigger shock when they meet thousands of other sheep at the shearing center. They cannot believe there are so many of their kind out there, while all along they thought they were facing extinction. Oh well, at least that was something positive out of this uncomfortable trip.
