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The Dogs Here Aren't Vegetarian, And Neither Am I.

Posted on Wednesday, April 8, 2015

The dogs here aren’t vegetarian, and neither am I.

As silly as that may sound, the above sentence actually alludes to two rather unfortunate aspects of my life. In an effort to help all of you who are far away understand life here a little better, I thought I’d fill you in on a couple things I did not expect coming here.

Dogs aren’t vegetarian.

I joke about what happened, but in all seriousness I’m thanking God I escaped last week with little more than some bruises and four shallow tooth marks. For the last two weeks I have been visiting a woman that I have befriended about five minutes walking distance from my house. She lives just off the main road back in a little gulley. Up until last Thursday, I didn’t even realize a dog also called that gulley home.

My friend’s six-year-old daughter goes to see a tutor in the early evenings and had told her teacher about me, her white friend. The teacher wanted to meet me, so I agreed to walk the girl to her studies one day. As I exited the house hand in hand with the six-year-old, a sudden sharp pain in my left hamstring made me yelp. When I spun around I found myself face to face with an angry mutt. Quickly back-peddling my way out of the gulley to the main road and relocating the girl who had run around the corner, we continued on our way.

Needless to say there was still a bit of pain, so I made my introduction to the teacher and a few other girls who were shy and giggly before excusing myself. My landlady agreed to escort me to the nearby clinic to get anti-rabies shots, but not before insisting on rubbing red chili pepper in my wounds. I am not necessarily an advocate for home remedies, but I decided letting her do it and be happy was better than arguing. Besides, it hurt less than the rubbing alcohol I used to clean it out first.

Almost two weeks after the incident I have completed my shots, the bite marks are little scabs, and I am happy to report that I haven’t started foaming at the mouth yet. I think we’re safe; although, from now on I plan to meet them at the park.

I’m not meant to be vegetarian either.

For about the last 12 months here I have been living with a extremely inadequate if not absent sense of smell. (My teammates like to tell me that living here, that is actually a blessing.) I have linked the loss with a lack of zinc in my diet, and I have learned that in America I got most of my zinc  through red meat and leafy greens….two things that are harder to come by here than where I grew up.

Zinc supplements have proven to not be as effective as I would hope, but every once in a while there is a day (or part of one) where my nose is useful for more than holding my nosering in place. Don’t be too quick to judge me, but I miss the ability to tell if my deodorant is doing its job or not on any given day…not to mention missing the fullness of flavor that I know food should have.

Last week I got to make a quick two-day trip to the capital of the country, though. I fully took advantage of the cuisine available and ate as much red meat as possible: 2 mutton Whoppers, 1 lamb shwarma roll, and a water buffalo burger. The fresh citrus scent that came to me as I peeled an orange a couple days after was a welcomed sign that those burgers weren’t for naught. (Also a reminder that I should probably make an effort to prepare mutton for myself more often.)

 

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