Puppy Love

Nick and Wendy finally arrive from Maine, USA and STT's new team is now complete. Nick is my new colleague and his good humour, enthusiasm and team spirit is refreshing and very welcome by all the team. We share a similar attitude to development and agree to do our best to work ourselves out of a job. Wendy is bright and warm. She is also incredibly brave, having come to work as a clinical psychologist in a local mental asylum. Her stories are jaw-dropping. I wonder how she keeps sane amidst patients greeting her whilst urinating and staff who can’t see anything in her but a funny white person. At a welcome tea party Nick and Wendy meet pretty much all the people I know who still live in Dodoma. Augustine and Marion are not among them. Three weeks later I learn that that weekend Marion was taken ill. She was rushed to hospital, flown to France and tragically passed away on the 2nd of June. All in the space of a week.

Soon after the tea party, Courtney comes to stay with me. She is a bouncy black and white terrier collie mix: Nick and Wendy’s third family member. While they migrate south for a week to study Swahili in Iringa, Courtney is left in my care. Though still with racist hang-ups and a nocturnal barking disorder, she is astoundingly clever and wonderful company, always game to play ball and warming my feet wherever I sit down. She wins me over effortlessly and I enjoy taking her out for walks despite having to assume the village clown role as I do so. One morning I take her to the local duka to buy some bread and canine breakfast treats. When I turn around to head back home I find we’ve been suddenly ambushed by four rough looking doggos. Two of them bark jealously and scratch they scruffy fur posing no serious threat besides a parasite menace. This, however, is the last of my troubles for I am really frightened by the quiet muscular dog growling (but not barking) and staring intently at Courtney. I try to shew them away to no avail. I notice the scary dog also has a loose chain hanging from his neck and realize she must be an escaped convict or guard dog. Courtney we have a situation here. Courtney is mute. She has either lost her voice after so much moonlit barking or she too is afraid. I hear myself anxiously swearing out loud and throwing kicks in the air but they don’t move. Crikey... all I wanted was to enjoy a nice cup of tea with some bread, not fight off fierce dogs first thing in the morning! A timely rock lands near one of the barking dogs and two men who have spotted us come to the rescue. Next time I’ll try swearing in Kiswahili!