Koy!!!

Sheep are a very big part of the culture here, especially in the Narin oblast. In my training village in Chuy oblast, sheep are just as pervasive as bad habits: everybody has a few and some more than others. My host family in Chuy has four sheep, but the story goes much deeper than that.

Most of the idioms involving sheep are true. They are incredibly stupid animals that are incredibly easy to trick. No doubt about it. They are dumb. For example, the sheep know what time they usually are fed every day, and just like Pavlov proved years ago, they get anxious when they don’t have their meal. However, unlike most animals, they do not actually need their meal to be quiet. If you go into the pen and pretend to give them food, they will stop crying. We ran out of food one day and my Ata showed me this trick. “Ackaldoo emes” means “not intelligent.”

Sheep are also flock animals that stick together no matter what. Wherever the leader goes, the others follow, no matter what it takes. A babe will try and knock you over in order to get back to the pack. If it was alone, you would have no problem walking up to it and picking it up like a kitten. You only make the mistake once of getting between the followers and the leader. It is not a pleasant experience.

They are incredibly easy to herd, however. If they are going the wrong direction, you just have
to run in front of them, raise your hands, and yell. They will turn right around. A stick also works pretty well. Ata takes them out with him into our garden behind the house (roughly an acre) and they graze while he does whatever it is that he does out there. Occasionally, you can hear him yell at the sheep for eating the tomatoes or running away. It is the one thing that always pulls me out of any funk.

The biggest problem with the sheep is them running away and breaking into the housing compound. As I’ve written earlier, our house consists of three buildings with basic 8 foot walls connecting/surround the compound. The sheep like to break into the compound and eat Apa’s roses or whatever is lying around. Usually, all one has to do is yell and throw your hands up and they run back outside. No real problem. I have even gotten in the habit of Ata imitation when it comes to sheep herding.

Then came Sunday. When I got up in the morning, Ata and Apa were already in the fields, doing something. I went to the water fountain (for lack of a better term) to brush my teeth when I saw the Papa Koy eating the corn harvest that Ata had been bringing in for the past few days. I was pretty sure the koy was not supposed to be eating it, so I raised my hands and it ran back outside. I closed the door after it. As I was brushing my teeth, I heard the door kick in again and the Papa Koy was back for more corn. This time I took a little different angle and raised my hands and yelled. The koy reared back and threw its head at me, just like those rams on The Discovery Channel. I was lucky in two ways: first, the koy has no horns; second, he is pretty fat and came nowhere close to hitting me.

I realized that I had cornered him and his usual “flight” response had been replaced with “fight.” His lack of skill at the latter proved his propensity for the former. I was angry now because the damn thing tried to hurt me. I walked away and considered my options as the sheep continued to eat the corn. Ata would be disappointed if I didn’t protect the corn, but I didn’t want to get my ass kicked by a sheep either. So, I thought about the greatest invention in the history of man and used it to my advantage: the tool. I went and grabbed the iron poker that Apa uses to stoke the fire and came back to my friend. I took a different angle and whacked the sheep on the ass. He looked at me and reared up, but I hit him again and then he saw his escape route outside.
Crisis averted and good wins the day.

Fast forward to today. Ata lets the sheep out and Papa Koy tries to munch on some corn on the way out to the field. Ata, stickless, whacks the koy with his hand, but is soon cornered by the sheep who attempts to head butt him. I was reaching for a stick when Ata reared back himself and kicked the sheep square in the jaw about six times before it turned around. It didn’t even faze him! I guess I have a long way to go until I am a Kyrgyz boy!