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Episode 805: War And Peace And Cows

Mariah Quesada
/
AP

If you're in South Sudan and something big happens in your life — you get married, you buy property or pay a penalty for a crime — cows are most likely involved. Cows are currency and credit card and bank account rolled into one. In South Sudan, banks can go bankrupt — cows are more reliable. At least that's how it used to be.

But in 2013, war broke out in South Sudan. Armed militias invaded and rampaged villages. They burned homes to the ground and attacked women, children and babies. They also undertook the largest cattle heist that anyone can remember. Now when survivors tell stories of their experiences, one thing they all speak about is how will they ever return home - or find peace - without cows?

Today on the show: Gregory Warner of NPR's podcast Rough Translation goes to South Sudan to find the missing cows.

Music: "Blue Eyes." Find us: Twitter/Facebook.

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Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Gregory Warner is the host of NPR's Rough Translation, a podcast about how things we're talking about in the United States are being talked about in some other part of the world. Whether interviewing a Ukrainian debunker of Russian fake news, a Japanese apology broker navigating different cultural meanings of the word "sorry," or a German dating coach helping a Syrian refugee find love, Warner's storytelling approach takes us out of our echo chambers and leads us to question the way we talk about the world. Rough Translation has received the Lowell Thomas Award from the Overseas Press Club and a Scripps Howard Award.