My Compound and Its Pecking Order

New puppy checking out mama cow.

With all the animals running around my compound I am still trying to figure out who actually lives here and who has just found his way through a hole in the fence for a visit.  My compound has a ten-foot high cement wall around two sides and a wood/metal fence around the other two sides.  The latter of which is known to have several holes, found recently by my growing puppy.   Within my compound, there is one main house where my landlord, his wife, and their three children reside.  Beside the main house is a long building containing five rooms, with three separate doors.  Two of those rooms and one of those doors belongs to my humble abode, where my puppy and I reside.  The other three rooms are the home to another family with just a little 10-month-old baby.

As you walk through the yellow door to my compound, you find the main house in front of you on the right, and the longer building I live in on the left. In front of the house is a small yard area usually filled with construction material belonging to my landlord who works as a contractor.  Between the two houses is the walkway to the backyard, which contains a few rooms used as the landlord’s kitchen and housing for various animals. 

Part of the backyard is partitioned off to house the large cow at night (see the post titled “My Undefined Role” for more details about her); another partition stands to hold loads of scrap wood used for fire, and in the center of the main yard area there is a small water tower and faucet where we all get our water.  This tower in the backyard creates the perfect circle, around which the animals tend to chase each other, battling for a dominate position and respect.  This brings me to the subject of my ponderings this week- the pecking order forming in my compound.  Allow me to first list the order, and then I will try to explain some rather entertaining stories that lead me to these conclusions.

Human adults
The large mother cow
Human children
The baby calf
Arbay, my puppy
Chickens

Now each of these steps contains obvious exceptions.  First, I have seen the children, and adults often fall down on this list to just above chickens, as a small puppy brings them to shrieks and screams.  Rather entertaining for me, especially when it is children who come into my compound uninvited to sneak a peak at the “ferengi house.”  I also might add that Arbay has never bitten anyone, as I would then find their horrified reaction as appropriate rather than amusing. I have often been one of the adults to fall below the large cow on the list, but on principle it is the humans who corral the cow into her sleeping area each night, so she will remain below humans on the list.

Arbay, as she grows bigger by the day, grows equally braver. I predict in another month that she will be just about equal with the calf.  I have often seen her curiously approaching the calf, whom we call Teja (Amharic for calf, and therefore his name), and each time she gets slightly more daring.  However, she remains second to the bottom on this list because as she grows, so does Teja, and I can’t help but think of the consequences of Teja’s agitated head-first charges once he grows horns bigger than his mother’s.

Arbay also has been known to drop to the bottom of this list.  Most of the time the chickens do not stand a chance against her; a few times I have seen her scare them so much that they have actually made the flight over the ten-foot compound wall!  I do not however feel pity for them, because it is that rooster who also serves as my alarm clock each morning before the sun even dares to show its face.  One of the funniest interactions I have seen though was when the chicken turned around mid-chase, pecking her beak back at Arbay, causing her to become the chased for the first time in their relationship!