(introduction...)

1. Small livestock farming is common in villages all over the world. Everywhere you see around the houses numbers of sheep, ducks, pigs, and above all chickens.

2. The villagers raise all these animals in order to have meat on feast days - for the arrival and departure of visitors, for sacrifices, marriages, births and funerals. And certain families have even got Into the habit of eating meat fairly often and, for instance, giving eggs to their children.

3. Very often, too, villagers sell animals when they need money: to pay taxes, to pay the expenses of children going to school, to buy medicines, salt, cement, sheet iron, tobacco, paraffin.

Small livestock farming is a way to build up reserves of food and money.