Originally Posted by gatogato
I know many of the farmers do not have a lot of money, but there is no excuse for not staking each cow if you do not have the money to maintain your fences.


Do you mean 'STEAKING'? I'll 'butcher it for you!!!

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'He who laughs last, was too slow to get the joke'
Never confuse the map with the journey.

This is hilarious. Are we really so limited in our ability to imagine other ways of life that we need the entire world to operate just as we do? The number of places in the world where livestock (chickens, goats, pigs, cattle, etc.) and/or pets run free greatly outnumbers the number of places where they are reliably fenced, staked or otherwise restrained. This includes my own country (USA) as much as it does Africa, Asia or South America. Suppose we begin by assuming that this is true because in some way it makes more sense to let animals run free, rather than assuming that whatever we're used to must be the right way ("There's no excuse....")?

Not only do fences cost money and assume certain (very Western) concepts of land ownership and tenancy, but they interfere with animals' ability to forage efficiently and less destructively. And while staking a single horse or donkey might be practical, the idea of staking a whole herd—or a bunch of goats, chickens or pigs—is just silly. People let these animals range freely because in this way they feed themselves, without Western-style massive inputs of feed and supplements. This is what works.

What's more, local customs dictate who is responsible and what should be done in cases where motorists damage property, either living (e.g., cows) or not (e.g., other vehicles). Quoting traffic laws is all well and good, but the legal systems to which posters are referring are imposed from the outside, and often have absolutely no applicability on the ground. Everyone but the clueless tourist knows this. Do we really want to offer convincing demonstration of our own cluelessness by railing about how this ought not to be true, or at least ought not to apply to us? Why travel, then?

Trying to forestall the obvious, I'll also say that of course I'm not in favor of tourists coming to these places and distorting local customs, laws or cash economies by serving as easy sources of absurd amounts of money. The point is that we're supposed to volunteer to play by the same rules as the people whose home turf we're visiting. More often than not, that means negotiating to pay appropriate damages if and when we transgress established local customs.

It also means that, whether we like it or not, we are often supposed to pay more than we would if we were genuinely poor, just as a wealthy Ethiopian would in the same situation. This is the way that life works, and all the self-righteous bluster I can muster doesn't change this; it merely makes me look foolish and offensive to the locals....who, being rather better behaved than me, are probably reluctant to embarrass me by pointing this out.

enjoy,

Mark

Well said Mark. Unfortunately us westerners always think that our values apply in so-called 3rd World countries. Growing up in Africa, I know that it's definitely not the case. As someone said in an earlier post, "When in Rome...."

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Just Ride!
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The implications of cow collision in India are a great deal more serious than a few hundred dollars of wallet lightening. Think: a long long freefall downwards in the reincarnation heirarchy.

Wanna come spend your next life in the Mumbai sewers with me, eh biker boy, eh????

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Simon Kennedy
Around the world 2000-2004, on a 1993 Honda Transalp

response edited and replaced...

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Que el cielo exista, aunque mi lugar sea el infierno...

Let me rephrase that, depersonalise this.

Compared to Ethiopia's roadside farmers, its poorest producers, we are all brash, bourgeois bastards, an idle elite lucky enough to holiday for years, roam the world on our rich-men's rocking horses, and all able to lay two hundred and fifty bucks on a dead cow. Bend it, mend it. If you break something, you replace it. Kill a man's cow, buy him another. Them's the rules, no? Which is why I'm struggling to understand some of the responses and attitudes on this thread.

Suerte, Dan.

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Que el cielo exista, aunque mi lugar sea el infierno...

Is this really about the inconvenience of being inconvenienced?

Sorry for not quoting you in full Dan... but i think those words stand out

From my first post on this thread i said, "we dont know the facts"
You can ride down a road and five minutes later another traveller
rides the same road and has a different adventure, how he or she
deals with the journey is his/hers choice. I for one can not expect other
travellers to behave the way that i would do, can any of us? when the shit hits
the fan its up to you to do what you think is right.

As for being a tourist, i for myself can honestly say that i never consider meself
a tourist, rather a guest.. ( but thats just me )

I ran over a duck once in Laos going through a village right in front of a bunch of locals. Fortunately killing it instantly. Thought id better stop, cost me 100,000 kip! Stupid duck. They all stood around looking at it like it was their favorite. Seemed pretty happy with the price though.

Maybe it was a bit of a character ... you know ... one of the boys.

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I've a feeling I'm not in Kansas anymore.

At least they didn't have you up before the beak.

Ouch! my sides...

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Simon

London-Cape Town 2004-06
Buenos Aires-Vancouver 2008-10:
http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/tstories/fitzpatrick

Slightly but - A woman brought a very limp duck into a vet. As she laid her pet on the table, the vet pulled out his stethoscope and listened to the bird’s chest. After a moment or two, the vet shook his head sadly and said, “I’m so sorry, your duck has passed away.” The distressed owner wailed, “Are you sure?” “Yes, I’m quite sure. The duck is dead,” he replied. “How can you be so sure,” she protested. “I mean, you haven’t done any testing on him or anything. He might just be in a coma or something.”
The vet rolled his eyes, turned around and left the room and returned a few moments later with a black Labrador retriever. As the duck’s owner looked on in amazement, the dog stood on his hind legs, put his front paws on the examination table and sniffed the duck from top to bottom. He then looked at the vet with sad eyes and shook his head.

The vet patted the dog and took it out, and returned a few moments later with a cat. The cat jumped up on the table and also sniffed delicately at the bird. The cat sat back on its haunches, shook its head, meowed softly and strolled out of the room. The vet looked at the woman and said, “I’m sorry, but as I said, this is most definitely, 100% certifiably, a dead duck.”

Then the vet turned to his computer terminal, hit a few keys and produced a bill which he handed to the woman. The duck’s owner, still in shock, took the bill. “$150!”, she cried - “$150 just to tell me my duck is dead?” The vet shrugged. “I’m sorry.” “If you’d taken my word for it, the bill would have been $20, but with the Lab Report and the Cat Scan, it’s now $150.”

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I've a feeling I'm not in Kansas anymore.

You been hammering the Guinness again???

I like to think that in that situation I would have bartered over the price of the cow and then butchered it, taken what I could eat before it went off and given the rest to the village, or stopped there and then and eaten it with them.
Contrary to popular belief Hindus can eat cows (that have died a natural death). As fate would have made you collide into the cow in the first place you shouldn't be automatically headed for the next life as a rat! You just can't decide to kill a cow, and if you can avoid them you should (ever heard them refered to as 'SMRs' [Sacred Mobile Roundabouts]?)

Near the town of Bahir Dar (Ethiopia) I bought a goat for $10usd. The folks I was staying with assured me this was a fair price- and that goat was delicious! Did you know?: In Ethiopia, a man who owns 1000 or more goats gets to wear a crown. It's kind of a big deal to own so many goats in these parts. $250usd for a cow- and you didn't mention the age of said cow- seems pretty steep to me. H.

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