Peace Corps pets can be the biggest comfort and the biggest pain. I’ve had two dogs as a PCV in Lesotho, and while it was a challenge to care for them and keep them safe I don’t regret the decision to have dedicated a lot of free time and living allowance money towards companions that gave and taught so much to me.
My first dog was a runt that my host father brought home about a month into my service. I called her Nala, which means “prosperity” in Sesotho, but of course also out of nostalgia for the Lion King and the fact that I was living in Africa and a dog was the closest I’d get to having a pet lion. I bought Nala bags of puppy kibble in town, and after realizing that I spent far too much money on kibble alone, I started her on a diet of papa (starch) mixed with kibble for nutrients. After only about two or three months, when she finally started to grow into a larger, fatter puppy, Nala disappeared. No one in my family or village knew where she had gone.
After hearing about Nala’s mysterious disappearance, and my distress over her absence, the town vet said he’d give me one of his puppies. After picking up the new puppy, along with a few of her siblings, we orientated them with a car ride and reggae music and took her home. I let her sleep in my house (a very westernized behavior, if you didn’t know) for about two weeks until I was so sleep-deprived I cleaned out one of my family’s pigsties and placed her in there to stay. I asked my friend how old the puppy was, and he assumed only about five weeks or so – totally breaking the law if I was in the U.S. Despite her young, tender age, I raised Nelly to be a healthy dog, much bigger than others in the village and much more social.
Dogs in Lesotho are mostly used as utility to help herd animals and guard at night, making them often aggressive and feared. So it came as a big surprise to the kids in my village when Nelly would follow me out to the water tap and want to jump up on them after playing around in the puddles. I was able to teach the kids that dogs can be petted if nice and obedient without throwing stones at them, and soon people stopped fleeing when they saw her barreling towards them from across the field so she could join in on the fun. Actually, a lot of the kids learned the “puppy” dance, a movement Nelly was notorious for: you stand feet together, bend elbows and squeeze them into your body, stick out your booty, and shake it.
The only other time I’d ever had a dog was when I was really young, and Nelly went on to teach me a lot in our time together. We were very similar in a lot of ways. We enjoyed harmless fun, such as me luring in the ‘killer’ goose that terrorized my family’s compound, and then me giving her the signal to chase it far into the cornfield or pond. She didn’t like to be tied up, and I didn’t like to stay in my house for too long, so we often went into the forest at the base of the mountain behind my house to explore for hours. We were also curious, and would watch pigs and take note of the grossest things they’d eat, and how close we could get to the dairy cow before it charged us. I also learned how fear coincides with confidence, and how you can own fear by having confidence, or let fear own you by showing doubt. I learned that mostly by being at war with the goose, and Nelly showed me that fear (the goose) can chase you, but if you stand up and start chasing fear (the goose), courage and confidence prevails! We also shared the commonality that learning from your mistakes isn’t as easy as saying the phrase. Sometimes I’d come home to find her off her chain, pieces of plastic bags shredded around my stoop. She’d have this pained look on her face, and then uncomfortably trot up to greet me and I’d have to say “Nelly. If you eat plastic bags, you poop plastic bags.” Thankfully I didn’t have this issue, but sometimes I wonder why I still go grocery shopping on the last weekend of the month when I know it takes me 30 minutes to get to the register, or go to work without rain boots or an umbrella on an overcast day and get stuck walking home in a downpour. I treated Nelly like I would in the U.S. and wanted so desperately for her to be my cuddle buddy in bed at night. But her habits of eating animal poo and rolling in red dirt and manure quickly ruled her as an outside dog only. I couldn’t take Africa out of the dog, just like how you can’t take the American out of me. I’m an American living in Africa, and it’s okay to be frustrated and feel out of place sometimes, because I’m trying to fit into this lifestyle that is not inherently mine – the same way that I was hoping to make Nell an indoor dog in Africa.
Almost a year into having crazy Nelly, she fell pregnant. I was excited to have puppies, but also thought about how often I’d be lugging 10kg bags of dog food up a mountain to my place to feed her increasing appetite. Around the time I found out she was gonna be a momma, I remember reading outside one day and then tying her up so she wouldn’t wander as I took an afternoon nap. My family’s domestic worker was really adamant about not freeing her when I wasn’t outside the whole time, so although this woman was the only one around and mostly working inside, I obliged. A few hours later I woke up and went to let her off her leash when I found her, her chain, and her stake all gone. Confused, I asked the domestic worker if she knew where Nell went, and got nothing. She was missing for a few days and I started to accept that something weird happened, and the curious cases of missing dogs (both disappeared without a sound and no one saw them) were probably connected. My host family told me their theories of what might’ve happened, and we put word out into the community to keep eyes out for Nelly, the dog everyone had come to know and care for.
It’s been a few months and Nelly hasn’t reappeared. I’d like to think that she’s being taken care of, wherever she is, which is a very hopeful statement compared to a lot of animals’ fates here in Lesotho. It’s hard to not think of all the things that might’ve happened to her, which can be very sorrowing to imagine. I definitely still miss her, taking a lot of joy looking at the memories I captured, and wishing she were here to chase away the geese (there’s two of them now) when I don’t feel like it. I decided not to get another dog, hoping to find the same companionship in other dogs that live near my place, or perhaps the village children who have taken very fondly to my crayons as of late. Mostly though, I didn’t want to put myself through another heartache.
xX Nthati Xx
Peace, Rain, Prosperity 