The Cowboys of Kayes

It is about half after five, the relentless sun finally yielding. A ragtag grouping of men, most of them in their early twenties, one with a big scar on his neck, chat amiably amongst themselves as they wait for things to get started.

On the other side of the dusty enclosure, also languidly congregated in a group, are their opponents, a brutish lot by all accounts. They have a habit of scarring their adversaries.

Standing amongst the group nearest me is the Ivorian footballer Didier Drogba. Other big names include Thierry Henry and Argentine Lionel Messi, both from FC Barcelona, also the Fredi Kanouté, the French-born Malian striker. The genius Brazilian midfielder Ronaldinho is here too; he is in high spirits.

But it is not soccer these Malian youths, all residents of Kayes, reputedly Africa’s hottest town, are set to play. Wearing cheap plastic sandals and sports jerseys announcing their football heroes, they are misiminena, cowboys in the local Bambara language.

Football and cows might not quite define all that there is to know about Kayes, but each is central to this rather forgettable market town crowded along the banks of the Senegal River. By day, every other youth transporting vegetables, selling hay bales or fixing truck tyres wears a football shirt. At night, the brightest lights in town radiate from the local soccer stadium.

Named after the Wolof command for “come here”, which used to be how locals beckoned the ferryman before the French and their bridges made it easier to cross the river, cows are also central to Kayes’ largely agrarian economy.

Approaching town from the Malian capital of Bamako in the east, vast herds of cattle can be seen grazing the fenceless landscapes. Amongst the breeds there is the humpless N’Dama, brought to West Africa by migrating pastoralists 9000 years ago. But it is the heavier, meatier White Fulani and Gobra, distinguished by their impressive lyre-shaped horns and bulging humps, that keep the cowboys busy.

Every afternoon at about six thirty, when the barometer dips just below thirty, Drogba, Henry and a whole phalanx of attacking footballers will accompany these impressive cattle, tethered by heel and horn, two-by-two down the national road. Coaxed with guttural chants, the cattle will be goaded, beaten, sometimes even wheeled in carts across the old iron bridge spanning the Senegal River.

“Where are they taking them?” I curiously asked my interpreter when I first saw them pass the hotel. I was in Kayes for a week without much to do, which perhaps explains my curiosity.

“To pasture,” he replied. In a manner of speaking he was right. The square, cement-clad building where the cows are guided is not so much menacing as obvious: it is an abattoir.

Disappointed by this grim endpoint, I resolved to find out where the cows came from, rather than linger on where they are gutted, filleted and shipped off in parts.

The next evening, after another all-day siesta, Kayes grinding to a halt when the sun is at its highest and meanest, I trace the route walked by the cowboys, in reverse.

I walk past the sprawling eastern market where Cheick Coulibaly, 52, a trucker and fan of James Brown told of how he had stowed away illegally on a ship bound for France, three times. “The French are racists,” he quipped in fluent English, drawing on his cigarette. “There will be more riots.”

As the ramshackle buildings and market stalls thin out east of town, near the cemetery, I see a man herding a group of goats down a side street. I follow him.

It is about four thirty when I arrive at the market, the cement wall surrounding the cattle enclosure marked with graffiti reading “Long live the playboys”. Slowly the playboys in football gear begin to arrive. I chat with two of them.

Sadio Traore, 23, wears a shirt with the name of Egyptian footballer Mido emblazoned on its back. He shows me the thick welt in his neck. Seated next to him is Marye Dembele, 32. He holds out his right arm: it has a long scar running up its length. Old war wounds, they explain, occupational risks.

A passerby laughs and says something in Bambara: “They do this job because they are poor,” my interpreter translates.

There is little to doubt this unsolicited bit of wisdom. The cowboys work two shifts, the first starting at five and ending around midnight. It involves getting the cows to the abattoir for slaughter. The average wage is R45 per day.

The job of slaughtering the cattle on the late shift, from midnight to morning, is more lucrative, paying R90 per day.

Sometime after the call to afternoon prayers, the action around the cattle enclosure begins to ratchet up. Seydou Lah, 67, and Kalidouh Kaleluyatasai, 69, arrive. They are to the Kaidi market what Roman Abramovich and Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan are to English football, the big guns. Lah, a former cowboy himself, is cattle trader, Kaleluyatasai president of the local cattle dealers association. Both wear the flowing robes, known locally known as boubous.

“A good cow is a fat cow,” explains Lah after dispensing a handful of grubby, cellotaped notes amongst the cowboys. Weight, he says, not necessarily region or breed determines value.

Some of the cows have come as far as 250km, from neighbouring Mauritania, to be sold at the market, founded in 1988. A cosmopolitan trader who identifies himself only as an “intellectual” and “storyteller” (in English) explains the economics. He will pay cattle farmers between R350-R450 per cow, selling them on at the market for anywhere between R1700-R4450.

As I gather these statistics, a young girl selling three bruised mangoes and tiny packets of peanuts threads her way through the traders, cowboys and spectators. To the great delight of the would-be cowboys seated on the walls, who whoop and cheer, Ronaldinho kicks off the the day's round-up by riding an incensed cow.

Wielding thick blue ropes, his teammates get to work. The cows kick and grunt. Even when roped around a rear heel, they are hard to subdue. A mottled bull is corned, and then escapes. What was, minutes before, a scene of Islamic restraint and composure is now a vast dust cloud of serious intent and circumspection. Great horns are wielded like spears and Ronaldinho is no longer smiling.

For a brief few minutes, man and beats are equal again.