Mundari cattle herders

On the banks of the Nile, just north of the South Sudanese capital of Juba, dawn breaks on a Mundari cattle camp and a young man begins his morning ablutions. After cleaning his teeth with a stick, he lowers his head under a urinating cow, tethered to a post nearby. His impromptu shower will ward off infection and has the added benefit of dyeing his hair orange. It is hard to overstate the importance of cattle to the Mundari people. Their animals are everything: wealth, status, sustenance and dowry -- and they guard them with their lives. They farm a breed of cattle called Ankole-Watusi – a distinctive white animal with curved horns, also known as “the cattle of kings.”