Son, the donkey is everything they need for a happy yet simpler life.
The word friend can be defined in a million ways but the meaning will always revolve around relationships and care. That’s reason enough to give me confidence in saying that I’m a friend of my unsung hero, who has since been christened “sikiriet” in my mother’s dialect, Kalenjin.
Beast of Burden is a name that the donkey carries, an industrious animal that recently I have traced back to my existence. Maybe without the donkey I would not have set foot on the third planet.
My mother, who is in her late 50s, was born in Sirwa, in the heart of Baringo county. According to her, the donkey was and continues to be a lifeline in the area, especially in search of water.
I was born in Sogonin, a village in Eldama Ravine ward in Baringo county. Honestly, I never had a challenge accessing water; it was a 10-second run from our home’s main door, blinding me to the challenge my mother faced during her childhood.
When I was 10 years old, I made my debut visit to my mother’s place. It was the first time I set eyes on a donkey. It didn’t take me long to note that the donkey was a strong animal, but it took me an hour’s walk to the river with the donkey in search of water to understand how dear the animal was to the people at my mother’s place.
On a recent call to my mother concerning the importance of donkeys in her birthplace, she calmly said, “Son, the donkey is everything they need for a happy yet simpler life.”
She couldn’t imagine her younger self carrying 60 litres of water on her back daily through the hilly terrain, saying that it would have caused health complications as well as choked her chances of accessing education since girls would spend hours looking for water, limiting their chances of making it to school.
The emergence of the donkey skin trade left them worrying, following reported donkey theft in neighbouring areas, after the Goldox donkey abattoir was opened in Mogotio, Baringo, approximately 40km away.
Maybe I wouldn’t have realised the significance of the donkey if I had not visited my mother’s place at the age of 10. That is why I can’t blame those who lifted the ban on donkey slaughter. Maybe they have yet to fathom the importance of Equus asinus. That the livelihoods of thousands will be destroyed if the slaughterhouses continue to decimate donkeys.
A fortnight ago I read a 2019 report authored by Kalro which noted that the four donkey abattoirs slaughtered 301,977 animals over three years (2016–2018). Three-quarters of those slaughtered were females. And 10 per cent of the slaughtered donkeys were pregnant, endangering their existence, which will, in turn, put a girl’s access to education in jeopardy.
Communications person
