Pinky is my family’s dog. Dogs are not pets here – they are the functional equivalent of a watchman. They are fed scraps and often (read usually) mistreated. There are wild dog packs that eat livestock and attack people (sometimes) if you dare to venture out at night to go to the latrine. Yes – we have a bucket for evening calls of nature. So Pinky, a nondescript female of unknown years, is a sweetheart and somewhat of an aberration, but then my host family doesn’t mistreat her or chain her. And all dogs look alike. Really, there are very few modifications in this design. No spotted dogs, black dogs, different breeds of dogs. They are all basically the same size and color, with few distinguishing characteristics save personality and the look in the eyes. Pinky is happy, has soft eyes and an endearing personality.
Anyway, I digress. Picky has adopted me as part of her tribe and follows me to school, to town and back and likes to curl up next to me anytime I’m outside. She checks on me to see that I’m keeping up. Now, she has other Mzungus in her tribe as well, but I’m her favorite, until someone offers her a food handout. Then she turns fickle. So it was a great drama when she was hit by a car following me into town yesterday. Neither cars nor Boda-Bodas have any regard for people, much less animals- it smacked Pinky and kept on going. Pinky was hurled off the road and the whole PC community new about it within moments.
We searched. I called Florence (host mom and Pinky’s owner) and she was not particularly bothered except that I was bothered. In a few minutes she called reporting that Pinky had returned home with little more than a scrape on her lower lip. We SAW this happen and how she was not injured, we don’t know. Except that there is an expression, that everything is tougher in Africa because it has to
Pinky is now know as the teflon dog and I’m wondering if I will be tougher after two years in Africa. At least I am better at watching out for cars and Boda-Bodas. I don’t know that it makes me tougher, just smarter than the average dog.