Dani speaks softly, slowly, almost counting the syllables;
he leaves each word his own time, marks the points, but then he doesn't stop.
The day will end at night in a sea of wool and under dim spotlights, rubber boots on between low and sharp bleating, moving bundles of straw, putting a hand in the mouth of a lamb to feel if it has suckled, dragging a sheep among hundreds of them in case she goes into labor at dawn.
Before he went to Vitoria to the notary.
He has a neat beard, a black cap and smiling eyes, even though being a pastor is hard.
Even more so in the forests of Álava.
And if your language is Urdu, there would be plenty of reasons to have left it a while ago.
This rancher is called Nazar Mudasir, although he answers for Dani.
“I want to make a name as a good shepherd.
Set a good example and get it done with these sheep.
And it's costing me, but when you love a thing, you get it, and I'm on the road, ”he says.
Nazar Mudasir is a 43-year-old Pakistani who works in the Basque Country as a salaried shepherd and longs to have his own farm.
In his country, his family had buffaloes and goats.
He went to college and qualified as an English teacher.
He soon emigrated.
In 2002 he arrived in Greece, and two years later, in Vitoria.
He was a bricklayer for several years.
When he had savings he entered a school for sheep herders, where he completed what he had learned in Pakistan with the animals from his house.
—I learned to make Idiazabal cheese, to shear, everything.
Then he bought goats and sheep, up to 700. But he would encounter problems accessing pasture.
He wanted to register in a municipality to be able to use the communal lands and the immigrant rancher ran into a bureaucratic wall, according to Txema Cendoya, a livestock adviser who helps him: “It's that sad.
His presence was misunderstood as competition and that misunderstanding caused his project to fail ”.
Sheep in charge of Nazar Mudasir.Markel Redondo
In addition, the consultant explains, Nazar's plans had flaws and little economic basis, and on top of that he was "so locked up" that he found it very difficult for him to prosper.
He sold the flocks and lost a lot of money, but the shepherd values that experience.
“Every day you learn.
If a sheep falls, you have to heal it.
Maybe you have never done it, and if you get it, you have already learned it.
You learn in a book, but more in practice, ”he reflects.
Nazar is a Muslim and practices a hospitality that among his people is usually a habit.
For the prophet, he says, poor is he who has no friends.
And now he has them in Álava.
“For me, Txema is like my father, and I have help from Raúl.
With these two people, I think I'm going ahead."
To get out of his quagmire, Cendoya contacted him three years ago with a couple, Raúl Rituerto and Nerea Ruiz de Azúa, who had returned from Vitoria to the town of Azazeta to set up the Rituerto family farm.
They were looking for a shepherd.
They had tried a dozen local kids and none had ended up staying.
Nazar Mudasir went to Azazeta and stayed.
Through the forest clearings in the area, of ancestral communal use, the tenacious Pakistani shepherd walks through the fog with his hazel stick.
Rituerto explains that, between the environmental protection of most of the Montaña Alavesa and the prices, cattle farming does not have a boost.
85% of the meat consumed in the Basque Country comes from abroad.
He says that he continues by vocation, and that he earns a wage, but also in Vitoria and without so many problems.
With their horses and their cows, Rituerto and Ruiz de Azúa could not cope.
Then Nazar arrived with his knowledge and his commitment: “He likes it.
He lives it, ”says Ruiz de Azúa, comparing it to others who have tried to do his job before.
Nazar gets up at 6.20 every day.
He goes up to the mountain, where the flock sleeps, leads it out and, with two dogs, follows it until nightfall.
He is in charge of controlling the pups, treating the hooves, preparing the pen so that the fox does not enter... When he travels to Pakistan, a cousin of his who lives in Vitoria takes over.
He recently went to his country.
He is divorced and his daughter lives there, a girl who may join him in Euskadi when he is of legal age.
This time he bought the return flight "in time" to be there for the births of the animals.
“It can happen when you are eating, having dinner or at night.
I like to be there when a sheep needs your help."
He had not yet embarked and the calm shepherd who did not stop still was already looking forward to returning.