By Stefanie Glinski
In the early morning, smoke from burning cow dung rose over hundreds of animals sleeping tightly side by side, with children dotted between them, warming their hands in the smoke, their faces covered in white ash to fend off flies and mosquitoes.
The cattle camps — where South Sudan’s nomads migrate to find pasture during the December to May dry season — are some of the world’s most remote, nestled between the arms of the Nile in Lakes State’s swamps.
“My days are busy,” 24-year-old Mary Amal told the Thomson Reuters Foundation, standing between hundreds of cows and holding her baby, Gok, in her arms.
“I came here with my brother to take care of our cows and I’m expected to clean up the camp’s cow dung and prepare food, while also taking care of my eight-monthold daughter.”
The camp was full of children who work as herders, cooks and cleaners. For many, it was also their first chance to learn to read and write, calculate sums and learn about hygiene.
Aid agencies are starting to provide mobile education in the remote cattle camps amid fears that South’s Sudan’s latest civil war is creating another “lost generation” of uneducated adults and country risks becoming a failed state.
“The cattle camp is like a village,” said Amal. “We have our tents here, we have small shops and even a church. It’s important to have a school here too.”
The United Nations (UN) estimates almost three-quarters of the adult population is illiterate — one of the highest rates in the world — and three-quarters of children are out of school.
Tens of thousands of people have died and 4.5 million people have fled their homes since clashes between troops loyal to President Salva Kiir and former vice president Riek Machar broke out in the oil-rich new country in 2013.
South Sudan’s cattle camps are not only a cultural tradition, but provide a lifeline for millions in the world’s youngest country, enabling them to trade and store their wealth as hyperinflation has rendered the currency almost worthless.
In the camps, everything evolves around the animals — their milk provides nutritious meals for children, manure lights fires and urine is used as a disinfectant hand and face wash.
Education rates among young pastoralists are particularly low because they are often on the move, the UN says.
Teachers receive training, textbooks and a solar-powered radio with pre-programmed lessons on basic subjects, relevant to them, as well as practical life skills, said Ezana Kassa of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization.
Also: QUITO, Ecuador:
Walking down a red carpet on all fours as an honor band plays Ecuador’s national anthem, 61 police dogs were officially retired after years spent sniffing out illegal drugs.
The majority of the dogs — Labradors, German shepherds and Golden Retrievers on the whole — were taken in by their former trainers. But the rest were adopted by families who opened their homes to a police inspection as part of a rigorous selection process to ensure the canines have a dignified retirement.
Police dogs in Ecuador on average serve for 9 years. Most of their work revolves finding cocaine smuggled through Ecuador. But 16 of dogs retired in Wednesday’s ceremony helped locate victims trapped under rubble following a 2016 earthquake that left more than 600 people dead. (Agencies)