Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was a quiet affair, spent in Chowke with seven other volunteers. Barbara, the oldest volunteer in Moz15 and our “mother” figure, made sure (as she did last year) that we had turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, and cranberry sauce. This year, no oven meant that the turkey was bought pre-packaged (instead of alive, like the previous year) and stewed. The electricity decided to go out for an entire day so everything, amazingly, was cooked over a charcoal stove. (Propane gas crisis in all of Africa = no gas for anyone, including me.) I showed up late for “dinner,” having lingered too long visiting my fiend Megan in Macia, but there was still plenty of food and I didn't mind eating alone. Afterwards, we all had charcoal-baked pumpkin pie made from real pumpkin and played Apples to Apples, Uno, and Bananagrams. This year, I'm thankful for other Americans (relatively) close by to celebrate with, and for Kevin's second visit. Next year, with any luck, I'll be HOME for Thanksgiving!

Aside from that, it's been kind of a tough week for me as an animal lover. I've lamented time and time again about the disregard for animals here in Mozambique, but this time takes the cake.

I stopped by to visit one of the 8 puppies I'd given away. (Note: Out of eight puppies, two had already been stolen, and another had already been re-gifted to a relative. One of the stolen puppies- mine!- was recovered when I came back from South Africa. Having received a tip from one of the neighborhood kids, I visited a house several streets down from mine and found my puppy tied up in their yard. A teenager claimed to have “found” it wandering around. I considered asking him if he “found” it in my yard with a collar on. Apparently, it's acceptable to keep any puppy you come across.)

So I'd gone to see “Kelvin,” a female black puppy that had been given to my coworker, who had then named the dog after Kevin, my boyfriend. As I opened the gate to the big walled-off yard, Kelvin came bounding up and immediately I noticed something wasn't right. My first thought was “she's got huge paws!”As she got closer, I noticed something protruding out of the side of her jaw, what looked like a huge tumor covered with white pus openings. I gasped, and realized that the same thing was going on with her enlarged paws too; they were swollen and obviously infected. When I picked her up, I could see she had sores all over her body.

I ran back to the front of the house to confront my coworker. “What happened to your dog?” I asked. “What do you mean?” was my coworker's response. “She's got sores all over her body!” I exclaimed incredulously. “I don't know, I haven't seen them,” he replied, shrugging. After a few minutes, in which I fumed and tapped my foot impatiently, he got up and followed me out to the yard.

“Oh shit!” was his reaction to Kelvin, who was whining and looking at us with sad, pained eyes. “Oh shit oh shit!” Uh...yeah.

“I'm sorry, I didn't know this was happening. My cousin [another coworker who had received a puppy] traded me his and we gave the other one to my aunt. The dog's only been here at this house a couple of days and every time I've been in to give it food, she's been hiding in her dog house.”

“Well, what is it?” I asked, pointing at Kelvin's wounds. My coworker squeezed one of the pus bubbles and A HUGE WHITE MAGGOTY WORM slid out like toothpaste from a tube. I was horrified. It was probably one of the most disturbing things I'd ever seen in my life.

It was obvious that Kelvin was covered with these worms living under her skin, with at least two or three in her jaw causing it to swell up like that. My coworker promised to talk to a vet and get Kelvin treatment.

Later, I saw the other coworker who had originally been taking care of Kelvin. “What happened to your dog?” I demanded. He looked, at least, sheepish. “That's what I'd been meaning to tell you...” He said. “The dog is sick.” “She's more than sick!” I snapped at him, “She needs treatment! Why didn't you tell your cousin about it when you dropped the dog off?” He didn't say anything. I couldn't believe it.

“I'm mad at you,” I told him finally. He looks shocked. “Why? It's not my fault!” “I left you with the dog,” I explained, “And expected you to take care of it. How did it end up looking like that? None of the other puppies I gave away have that problem. How is it that yours is the only one? You should've taken care of it better.” I left him standing there arguing “But I didn't do it!”

To give him some credit, the next day he sat down with the dog and pulled all the worms out one by one. (Having, of course, been guilted into doing something about the puppy's situation.) I asked him how many he had found. “There must have been over 50,” He said. Gross. I'd like to add that this year, I'm also thankful that my dogs are healthy and happy.

On a different level of animal woes, I'm beginning to realize that I've adopted the most annoying kitten on the planet. Ten times more obnoxious than any other kitten I've lived with or come across, and that's saying a lot. Mazambane (which means “potato” in Changana), while small and cute and cuddly, has no meowing OFF button. That's what I get for adopting a kitten who comes from a mother just as loud. I like Mazambane the best when he's sleeping, actually, because that's probably the only time he isn't crying to me about something. At 7am sharp, meow meow meow MEOWMEOW FEED ME MEOW outside my bedroom door. Even when I give him food, meow meow meow meow I don't like this crap meow. When he wants attention, meow MEOW meow PET ME meow meow, When I don't let him outside, meowmeowmeowmeow... you get the picture. It is, however, nice to have company in the house when it storms like the apocalypse in the evenings and the power goes out. This year, I'm thankful that I have had no security incidents in Moz and that I have an ipod and headphones to drown out constantly mewling kittens.