Road to Manhood
Posted on September 04, 2008 by Barak in Asia | No Comments
Two brothers driving the family sheep to a nearby spring. Although it’s easy to gloss over the simplicity of this story, it depicts something truly remarkable. How many of us would allow an 8 and 10 year old wander miles from home unaccompanied? How many of us would allow them to be in charge of a major portion of our family’s assets? Livestock represent the entirety of a pastoralist’s wealth; it’s the only possession they have that is of material value. And so on the shoulders’ of these two boys rests the family’s investments from which they will trade, buy food, pay for school, purchase clothing, medicine and anything else required for basic survival. The journey to manhood begins early and is shouldered with an ease most of us in the West can barely comprehend. I turned away to climb into my air conditioned Land Rover and grab a bottle of ice-cold water from the cooler. They walked the rest of the way to the oasis and drank from a spring polluted by the feet of thousands of dusty animals. It’s an injustice of immeasurable proportions.
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