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The new goatherd
is a Polish plumber
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As I noted last month, we often spend a
whole day exploring the Sierras without seeing anyone and when we do meet
someone it’s just as likely to be a shepherd or goatherd as another
walker.
With only their dogs and flock for company, they’re often happy to
stop for a quick chat - with one wary eye alert for strays - and I’m
always fascinated to learn more about them.
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Theirs is a solitary way of life which has survived in the mountains for
thousands of years. Successive invaders have come and gone and climactic
social and economic upheavals have swept away whole communities but
through all this turbulence the shepherds have criss-crossed the
mountains, always seeking fresh grazing for their flocks.
| There are fewer of them now than in centuries past but a surprising number
have survived the depopulation of the sierra. Every valley seems to
support at least one flock of sheep or goats and, near Salares, I once saw
three different flocks browsing across the hillside at the same time only
a couple of kilometres apart.
Most find their grazing on private land by
agreement with the landowner, but a number of shepherds are permitted to
pasture a total of around 4000 sheep and goats within the boundaries of
the Parque Natural de las Sierras de Tejeda y Almijara.
The park authorities are keen to support traditional economic activity
where this doesn’t damage the mountain habitat and controlled grazing,
along with beekeeping, is actively encouraged to supplement the forestry
which is the predominant income generator in the park. |
Grazing above Salares |
Almost all the shepherds I meet seem to be middle-aged and it’s difficult
to see where the next generation is coming from as most young men prefer
the attractions of life in the towns and along the coast to the solitary
and often harsh conditions of life as a herdsman in the mountains. But the
other day I met one who could represent a hopeful sign for the future.
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Kamal and his flock |
Returning from a walk in the rio Torrox valley, I passed a young goatherd
who seemed to be at the most in his early 20s. A couple of hundred goats
eddied across the hillside around him like windblown leaves, swept along
by an assortment of small dogs.
Watching them, I was intrigued by the way
in which the dogs constantly studied their master’s face, almost as if by
doing so they were trying to divine his intentions, or perhaps seeking his
approval. I was to find later that this apparent devotion didn’t extend to
other human beings.
Stopping for a chat I learned that the goat pen was only a short distance
away, right beside the Frigiliana - Torrox road, and arranged to visit him
there the next day to find out a little more about him and his flock. |
My visit didn’t start well. I found the pen without difficulty and, seeing
no sign of the shepherd but hearing voices from the barn, called out to
him. The three small dogs I’d encountered the day before rushed noisily to
meet me and as I walked down the path to meet the two men who had appeared
from the barn, mongrel number three circled round behind me and sank his
teeth into my calf!
My horrified hosts chastised the offender and tried to inspect the damage.
Despite the blood seeping down my trousers, I gritted my teeth and
protested that it was “nada” until they gave up. Having forsaken a day’s
walking to set up this interview I’d no intention of wasting the day. Once
the miscreant had been safely locked away I was very glad that I had
persisted, for the shepherds had a fascinating story to tell.
The older man, Miguel Jimena Cecilia, owns the flock but is a long way
from the traditional image of a shepherd. Smartly dressed and prosperous
in appearance, he seems to have a number of other business interests on
the go, including a smart holiday villa overlooking the farmyard and goat
pen, which he lets out to visitors.
Now in his 40s, he looked after the goats on his own for over 20 years but
has recently taken on the younger man as his assistant. This relieves him
from the seven-day-a-week, 365 day-a-year burden of caring for the goats -
“no holidays for goat herds”, he said - and allows him to spend more time
on his other interests.
His young assistant, who now tends the goats for six days a week, came as
even more of a surprise. He isn’t Spanish at all but a Moroccan named
Kamal Buscraguiz who was born in Casablanca. |
Miguel and his goats |
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Goatherd near MAro |
He comes from a family of
herdsman, several of whom settled in Spain a couple of years ago and his
parents now live in Nerja while his father tends a herd further along the
coast. Are these Spain’s Polish plumbers?
But he’ll soon have another assistant, too, Miguel told me. His
14-year-old son is keen to start when he leaves school. Then, leaving
Kamal to show me around the farm, he headed off along the coast to deal
with other business, but not before he had extolled the virtues of his
holiday villa and its idyllic rural setting and left me the number to call
to rent it.
Scattering an assortment of chickens and turkeys, Kamal led me down a
steep path, slippery with goat droppings, to the main pen - an open barn
crowded with goats. After the incident with the dog he clearly considered
me accident prone and repeatedly insisted that I cling tightly to the rail
to avoid falling over as we descended the slope. |
Clearly expecting food, the goats pressed around Kamal as he described his
daily routine. Each morning he feeds, mucks out and milks the goats and
then, after lunch, takes them out to graze on the Sierra. He follows a
number of different routes, all cleared by Miguel with the landowners
concerned, who are compensated with the occasional kid. His grazing routes
extend for about 5 km all-round the finca, including land in both the
Torrox and Frigiliana valleys, and he tends to head inland to the higher
ground in summer and down towards the coast in winter.
Confirming my earlier impression of the number of herds in the area, he
told me that three other herds share the Frigiliana valley, in addition to
the flocks in the Parque Natural. |
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Miguel’s flock numbers about 200 head, from which he is able to sell 30 or
40 kids a year for meat but his primary income comes from the sale of milk
and I was astonished when Kamal led me from the dung-strewn barn into a
gleaming space age milking parlour, all shining white floors and stainless
steel.
Before milking, he deftly isolated the suckling mothers from those heading
for the milking parlour. To me one goat looks much like another and when I
asked how he tells which is which he looked at me a little pityingly and
said simply “I know them”.The animals scampered into a line of raised milking stalls where Kamal was
easily able to inspect them and clamp the milking tubes to their teats. |
In
a matter of seconds the milk from about 40 goats, untouched by human
hands, was flowing through the tubes into a polished steel vat, and Kamal
relaxed contentedly with a cigarette. By the following morning, he told
me, it will be bottled and distributed to customers along the coast, and
twice a week inspectors come to test the purity and fat content of the
milk.
I was delighted by Kamal’s evident pride in all this high-tech equipment,
and his affection for the goats, but wasn’t it a rather lonely life, I
asked? Again I get that slightly pitying look. “I enjoy it, and anyway on
Sunday I get to see all my friends in Nerja,” he replied. |
The milk
vat |
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Foraging beneath the
almonds |
The herds of goats we see scrambling across the mountainside seem a far
cry from Miguel’s gleaming modern milking parlour. I find it very pleasing
that this apparently changeless rural industry can successfully adapt to
satisfy the “health and safety” demands of the 21st century.
What’s more,
with Kamal and soon, his own son to tend the goats, Miguel has ensured for
at least a generation to come the future of one of the picturesque herds
which are such a feature of the Andalucian landscape.
TONY
ALLEN |
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