A Goat's Tale

The Beersheba Project, our work in Mbale in Eastern Uganda, is now branching out to incorporate goats as an income-generating activity for the project, as well as a training tool for local families so that they too will be able to breed and sell goats.

This is the new goat house, a recent construction, which apparently is being admired by the locals as a high class goat home.


Goat meat is quite popular here so though these animals may look cute - and the kids definitely are - the reality is that they are reared with the cooking pot in mind. There's no room for animal sentimentality here. In fact, during a visit to the local zoo, friends of ours overheard a group of Ugandans trying to work out how many meals you would be able to get out of the resident lion. Quite a different perspective from the average Windsor Safari Park go-er.

Samson, our German Shepherd-cross dog, also has a taste for goats it seems. Last week when he was being taken for a walk, he came across a group of goats innocently grazing, when he suddenly lurched at the big butch male and took a bite....... at his testicles!!

Unsurprisingly, the goat leapt forward (away from Samson) with Samson still very much hanging on, which resulted in a very torn testicle; so torn in fact that it fell out. Robert, our guard who was taking him for a walk, had to pop it back in and bind it up with banana leaves (they have so many uses).

Unfortunately this goat was being reared for someone's Christmas dinner who wasn't happy about the idea of a 'spoiled' goat, so we had to sell it to a local butcher and buy a new one.

How's that for a day in the life of Ruth and Matthew?