Transhumance, OIB ... tiring but fascinating experiences !

What is transhumance?

So except  if you have farmers in your family or if you're very keen on cattle breeding techniques, you might not know what a transhumance is. Basically, the action of transhuming (I don't know if this verb exist but let's create it ! ) is when you bring sheeps to the mountain, or other animals but in my case they were sheeps, in order to feed them with new pasture. This technique is thus not used in humid regions, where grass is always growing but only in arid ones like provence. 

Why did I transhumed? (I love this new verb) if

As I suggested previously, my grandparents are, or were farmers (but I can't forget the moments I spent with them nourishing their lambs, they were just so adorable and I even used to adopt some of them with my cousin, but of course by father didn't wanted me to take a lamb as a pet). Anyway, my grandparents were farmers and they have farmer friends, a lot of farmer friends. Two of them, a couple, were doing the transhumance with them (my grandparents) when they were young - my grandfather even constructed a mezzanine above the sheeps in a truck for my father and his brother, so that they could here the ewes bleat when they were children. But now, they're not doing it anymore, but their friends are. That's why I ended up transhuming with Mital and Francis, the best farmers on earth, thanks to them really I am extremely proud and grateful for what we did together!!! 

A transhumance routine...

As you may have expected because of the title, transhumance and the OIB have a lot in common... first common point: lacking sleep. Second common point : meeting amazing people that you won't ever forget. Third common point: learning things that you won't ever forget. Fourth common point: being another person when you get out of it. 

Indeed as the OIB, transhumance's routine is intense but enriching. You wake up at 3:00 am or 4:00 am, then you eat ( cake and tea) untill 5:00 am and at 5 am you start walking. The goal is to reach a pasture in the mountain that is owned by the farmer ( in my case, it was the partnership of a father: Francis and his son Felix: Mital was not here because she doesn't like to wake up early, and I truly understand her). So we constitute a team of a dozen of persons, this year we were about ten I think, including the farmers. There also were 12 dogs, seven border collies and five patous (massive dogs meant to protect the herd). We were managing the herd by placing a truck in front of it and a car, more precisely a C15 (mythic farmers car) behind it. On the sides there were us, the volunteers whose goal was to check if no ewe or lamb get lost.

Each day, we walked about twenty kilometers, stopping at nine am to take a break because ewes are not able to trek when it's too hot. Then we were sleeping, reading or chating. Personally, I was whether reading in english to prepare the oib test or swimming in the river if there was one. At eleven, we were meeting to cook the lunch. It was always a friendly moment, Francis sharing anecdotes about farming and us about our lives. 

After that, we were doing the dishes and then taking another nap ( you might think that we were sleeping a lot, but trust me waking up at 3 am during twelve days and going to bed at 11 pm is exhausting). When the heat was less intense, that is at about 5 pm, we were leaving again and trekking until the next step (each time, there was a step for daytime and a step for night). At 11 pm we were stoppingand then the day was starting again. The biggest step we made was eighteen kilometers long, eighteen kilometers without resting a single second... When we arrived the person designated to drive the truck had already prepared a fire, so we were alive again! 

In total, we walked more than two hundred kilometers. On the last day some of us cried, because we were really united, no one was excluded from the group and everyone was liking each other (idealistic but true). We were from 16 to 74 years old. 

After the last day, my mother came to pick me up and then I went to pass the oib test with two hours of sleep, because I arrived late in Marseille and of course I was used to wake up at 3 am.

 Thank you for reading this, Eva : )