So baaaaaaad it's good: Sheep the stars of show

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REBECCA BLACKWELL / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS A star is born? Ndiaye strokes Papis General Fall as competitors await the judges� final decisions. (CP)

DAKAR, Senegal -- The street level of Ousmane Ndiaye's building features a fabric shop. He and his family live in a posh apartment on the second floor. Their upstairs neighbours? His beloved ram Billal and 10 other sheep.

Here his animals prance on a sunny outdoor terrace well above the commotion of buses and vendors below, and only rarely use the building's winding staircase.

Billal is fed the family's dinner leftovers, and Ndiaye jokes that his wife is jealous of his sheep. The family even foregoes rental income by leaving the upper level of their building unfinished.

"I could rent this place out for 250,000 francs ($500) a month, but I prefer to keep Billal and my sheep here," says Ndiaye, 60, sporting a royal blue boubou as he strokes the head of the sheep he hopes will become a reality television star.

In a nation where sheep are given names and kept inside homes as companion animals, the most popular television show is Khar Bii, or literally, "This Sheep," in the local Wolof language.

It's an American Idol-style nationwide search for Senegal's most perfect specimen. Now in its fourth season, the show airs several times a week in the months leading up to Eid al-Adha, or Tabaski, as it's known here.

The feast of sacrifice is when Muslims around the world slaughter animals in remembrance of Abraham's near-sacrifice of his son.

In Senegal, the sheep's ties to the important religious holiday have made them a part of many urban families in this predominantly Muslim country of 12.8 million people. Still, every family that can sacrifices a ram at Tabaski, when an estimated 712,000 sheep will be purchased for slaughter. Some 240,000 of those are in the Dakar region alone, where supermarkets are already offering scratch tickets for a chance to win a free Tabaski sheep.

"The Senegalese are really into their sheep," says Fadilou Keita, 28, who lives with six of them by night at his Dakar home. The financial analyst carries his iPad in one hand and sticks his other in the mouth of Aziz to drag him toward the weigh-in scale. "This is my passion."

The finalists from each region of the country now face off later this month for a chance to win 2,000,000 francs ($4,000) and the extra prestige to their future breeding credentials, said veterinarian Dr. Mamadou Ba, a consultant for one of the program's sponsors.

The TV show's Facebook page has nearly 9,000 fans. The sheer volume of entries and its loyal viewership are testaments to just how much the Senegalese love their sheep.

As the country has urbanized, many have kept alive the tradition of sheep raising. It's not unusual to see them grazing in an urban traffic circle or seeking shade near cars at a taxi rank.

The TV show Khar Bii follows a team of judges as they make housecalls to scope out potential candidates for regional finals. Trekking down sandy side streets and up on to rooftops, the crews set off in search of an animal with both size and composure.

In one Dakar neighbourhood, the Khar Bii team ducks under lines of clothes drying in a courtyard reeking of urine until the ram named Cherif is brought out of his pen.

A staffer with a face mask uses a rectal thermometer to be sure the animal is healthy enough for the competition. It takes four people to keep Cherif still while they measure him in length.

The finalists from home visits then square off at regional finals, where one doting owner even brought a special umbrella to protect his sheep Dogo from the blazing sun overhead.

"Some people love cats, some people love dogs. Here we have sheep," says Abou Aziz Mare, 27, who says he spends three to four hours a day on his terrace with his animals. "I live with him like a close friend," he says of Dogo.

Samba Fall, 44, keeps seven sheep at his home in Dakar's Medina neighbourhood though his clear favourite is blue-eyed Papis General Fall.

"He is like my little son," Fall says, stroking Papis between his horns. "I prefer being with my sheep to being with people. Sheep don't talk about insignificant things."

Papis General Fall is among the nine finalists in one Dakar neighbourhood when he is led out of his pen on a rope and brought past the judges before being given a bag of food to keep him busy while the other finalists are trotted out one by one to the loud beats of a drum circle.

An audience in white plastic lawn chairs waves fans in the heat as the announcer calls out each animal's measurements and owner's name.

Each ram competing on Khar Bii is graded on a series of physical criteria -- including up to five points awarded for the symmetry of its testicles and another five points possible for the quality of its coat. How well the sheep marches with his owner is another 10 points.

And overall size is key: Papis General Fall at 225 pounds (102 kilograms) failed to advance, and the neighbourhood prize went to Alassane -- a ram weighing in at 280 pounds (127 kilograms).

The victor had a snow-white coat and red collar with his name embroidered in green and yellow letters -- the colours of the Senegalese flag.

Even for the sheep who don't win cash prizes, there is still plenty of love. Lamine Diop, a 33-year-old post office worker, keeps a photo of Eto'o on his cellphone.

"I treat him like a brother," Diop says of the animal named for Cameroonian soccer player Samuel Eto'o. "A sheep is a part of the family."

-- The Associated Press

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition October 15, 2012 C6