I was bartering with two Kenyan men to buy a goat. They had several in a small herd. One of the goats was nearly hairless and very pregnant. The two men kept pointing to it and repeating the word, “Nyati”. The odd thing was that I knew very well that this goat was actually a woman, even though it looked just like most goats. I bought the goat from the two men for 100 shillings, which is an absurdly low price. Then they pulled a classic Kenyan sale maneuver. They claimed I still had to pay for the unborn goat inside. I responded to this by leading my new goat away.
The further we got from the two yelling men, the more the goat turned into a very pregnant lady. Soon we rounded a bend and she looked just like a pretty, pregnant Turkana woman. She was smiling at me, and I removed the rope from her front leg (now wrist). It didn’t surprise me at all for some reason that she was a woman now.
We went on down the road and found a river. I suggested that she might need a drink. She told me the water was too dirty. This would not be a likely response from a Turkana lady. For some reason I felt a profound feeling of love and need to protect this gal. So I helped her cross the river and we eventually came to a sort of well, where she drank a great deal. Just before I woke up, I asked her her name, to which she replied, “Monyome”.
