I want a buffalo!  It all started a couple months ago… Matt was talking to Brian Biedebach, mentioning that both Matt and I love pickles, so we might need to plant some dill and garlic in Malawi to make our own pickles.  Brian said we’d be better off making cheese than pickles.  What?  No cheese in Malawi?  Well yes, they said, there is cheese, but it’s really bad.  Uh-oh.  How are we going to make pizzas for the youth group?  And what about Mexican food? So we started thinking about cheese.  Somebody has to make the cheese, so we should be able to do it, we figured.  After seven gallons of curdled milk down the toilet, we finally had a pound of good mozzarella.  Visions of gouda and colby jack cheeses… But mozzarella was a good start. 

Now to make it the best mozzarella.  Ever heard of Mozzarella di Bufala?  Yep, that’s buffalo mozzarella, and it’s good!  If you look in a cheesemaking book here in the States, they pretty much say “Oh, it’s good.  But you can’t make it here because you can’t get a supply of buffalo milk.”  BUT – they have buffalo in Africa!  Water buffalo. 


So began the desire to get a water buffalo.  And here are my additional circumstantial justifications:
1)      The African Water Buffalo is on the endangered species list, so someone needs to look out for them.
2)      I could sing the Veggie Tales song and it would be true, so long as mine is slow.  But I can only sing it to you if you get your own water buffalo, and yours is fast. 
3)      I think it would be great for making friends in Malawi! 
4)      Matt and I are both lactose intolerant, so we can have buffalo’s milk, but not cow’s milk.
5)      They can fight off lions.  Really.  National Geographic said so. 

I keep telling Matt that these – in addition to cheesemaking opportunities – are great reasons for getting a water buffalo. He’s not convinced. Yet. But he said maybe I should get some feedback from the blog. So now it’s up to you. Yea or Nay on the water buffalo?