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| Morning of Korite. Less than 8 hours old |
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| One week old and just a pile of kitten fluff |
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| Three weeks old and trying to get out of the box |
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| Kitten with the black spot is the oldest. Haven't named him yet. He's a cautious little fellow |
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| This is Penda (named after my counterpart). She's very playful and has been trying to escape the box for a week. |
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| Wide eyed and romping around momma |
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| Except Julde (named for the Pulaar word for Korite, since he was born on that day) Always sleeping. This time curled up with the bunny. |
There is a strange dichotomy of attitudes and treatment of animals here. Animals are a lesser form of life. They are not worthy of concern, remorse, respect, spending money (eg medicine or food) when tea could be had, and animals are the dumbest of all living creatures (read: they are incapable of learning). Dragging them across the compounds by one leg, folding goats/sheep up into a basket and strapping them to the back of a bike is no problem. Need to transport a chicken long distance? Tie their legs together and hang them upside down from the handle of a motorcycle or bike. Have a small cow? Hog tie it and haul it on top of a bus. Horse not 'behaving', balking or 'not moving fast enough' - take a tree limb/rope and beat the crap out of it. Nothing but your hands? Closed fist in the jaw a couple times will make them listen.
Goats and sheep regularly eat themselves to death. Or they get hit by motos, or even occasional get eaten by the few predators in the woods where they are grazed (if they are even taken out to graze). They waltz through huts and into the cooking area, leaving a trail of little black balls of poop as a thank you gift. Any animal on four (or two) legs can lick out a bowl of remaining rice, sauce, veggie scraps, etc and people will scare them away with a few kicks or waves of a tree branch and then promptly dole out the family meal in the same bowl from which 6 people will soon eat.
Horses, donkeys and cows can be worked to death - underfed especially during the raining season when they are out in the fields pulling plows 6 hours a day (ironic, really, since the rainy season provides so much free grass to eat) - or starve to death because people cannot afford/refuse to buy adequate food during the dry season 8 months of the year.
These types of actions scream 'we couldn't care less about these animals'. But on the flip side of this dichotomy is a value system [albeit restricted] applied to the same animals.
Case in point: my little brother, Alpha, is now 2 years old and he is the walking, talking, breathing example of the 'terrible twos' label. He's a holy terror to animals. His entire life he has watched animals get smacked with sticks, kicked and hit with anything in reach. That is all he knows about animals. See them = hit them. Older, larger animals he can't catch and he is a bit afraid of them. But baby animals are easy pickings. Two weeks ago he beat a baby goat to death.
Take a moment to let that sink in.
He beat a baby goat to death.
When my host dad found out about it three days later and at night, he beat the kid for it. He told him why he was beating him, but at 2 years old - and screaming at the top of his lungs - he understands less Pulaar than I do and most certainly was not listening to anything that was being said.
If people (most especially children) cause bad things to happen to animals, there is hell to pay. No matter what the Senegalese think of the mental/emotional capacity of the animals they own or how treatment directly relates to behavior, every single one is money on legs. Goats, sheep, pigs, chickens, horses, cows, and donkeys can all be sold to pay for one thing or another. Or they can be eaten to sustain the family. They have value. In place of saving money in a bank - which more often that not is just too far away and requires the ability to read and write French - animals are a family's savings. 'Piggy Bank' takes on a whole new meaning.
Cats and dogs, on the other hand, have no value what-so-ever and can even be seen as a menace to society.
The oddity that is my gentle treatment of Tennan (and previously Talata) is now such old news that people in my village just enjoy asking me how she is and laughing when I answer with the same answer one gives when asked about a person: "Hono Tennan? [How is Tennan?]" "Jam tan mbo woni" [She is peace only]. My closer friends felt bad for me after Talata disappeared, the nicer ones telling me he just went out to find some lady friends like all males do.
When I returned from Kolda 2 weeks ago Tennan was sick. I won't go into the whole story, but she had some sort of infection and she needed medicine. There is no vet anywhere near my village. Kolda is the closest. So I needed to get the medicine from my health post. Just a simple children's amoxocyllin. Inexpensive and easy to use because it dissolved in water and I could use my eye dropper to force Tennan to drink it. When I asked the ICP (guy in charge of the health post who has the medical training equivalent of nurse practitioner) if I could have the medicine and told him why he stared at me like I'd grown a second and third head.
"I don't have time for this," he said dismissively. "Medicine is for people, not for cats."
Now, I totally understand this. The medical supply chain in this country is deplorable and people really are more important that animals. I get that. I agree with it. That said, there is no vet; I was asking for a medicine they had in extreme surplus and I had no other option.
Tennan is my sanity. Losing Talata was hard enough, if anything happened to Tennan I'd go bonkers. Your opinions of my dependence on a four legged creature for my sanity are what they are, but when my day feels like hell I can always go into my hut and cuddle with my cat who loves me even though I speak Pulaar like a 4 year old.
I went back to my hut, a bit irrationally upset now that I look back on it - but extenuating circumstances of little sleep and bad stomach problems for a week exacerbated all issues at that point - and called my parents. I was not quiet about my distress and anger at being so coldly dismissed when my cat was suffering.
My host dad heard me and came into my room after I got off the phone. He asked me what was wrong, insisting that I tell him after I said it was stupid and nothing. "You are crying," he said. "It is not nothing." So I explained about Tennan and the need for medicine. "I know the way I think about animals is different than everyone else," I told him in the end. "But Tennan is my health [I couldn't remember the word for sanity in French - the language that comes out when I'm emotionally stressed out, apparently]. She is my friend."
He looked at me and shook his head. "No, Aisatou. It is not stupid and it is not nothing. I know you. You care about all animals. Their health is sacred to you. I know how much you love your cat. I will talk to the ICP."
Shamed by having the chief come to him and ask why I was refused medicine, the ICP told a song a dance story of not understanding me. He said he thought I was talking about my younger brother and wanted to buy medicine without having a consultation. Utter BS, but whatever. I got the medicine and Tennan got better.
Yay for happy endings, right?
I try not to think about what might have happened if my host dad hadn't been so understanding, or if the ICP had stood his ground. Western ideas and treatment of animals is extremely foreign in this part of the world. Animals are animals. They exist to serve us or else there is no other reason to care. Overpopulation of cats and dogs is handled by mass poisoning and drownings. Population control is practically impossible (spaying is impossible outside of Dakar and extremely expensive; few people take the trouble to neuter dogs) and in the case of those animals that 'matter' (donkeys, cows, sheep, etc) it is not desired. Goats and sheep are as prodigious at breeding as rabbits so that's just more free money, provided that they live.
I didn't mean to make this post depressing and I'm sorry if I brought anyone down with my tales of animal woe. To lift your spirits (and mine) here is a lovey picture of the ice cream I pretty much inhaled at N'Ice Cream while here in Dakar.
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| This is Obama flavor and Rock flavor. Otherwise known as Triple chocolate ice cream (Obama) and chocolate and peanut topping mixed with vanilla (Rock) SO GOOD |
I hope to have an update on fundraising for my well project by my next update. If you'd like to help that along please click Sing Thiang Poullo Well Project. To read about the project in more detail, take a gander at my last blog post, Water For Sing Thiang Poullo.
Upcoming events include returning to village next week, planning the ceremony for the girls' scholarship with my middle school principal, studying for my upcoming GREs and planning a sexual health education class with my friend Julia Bowers that will take place at the middle school as well. Also hope to do some mural paintings. My goal is to do a world map, a map of Africa and one of Senegal. As in America, geography has gone by the wayside in classroom curriculum so perhaps a giant multi-colored map will spark some questions and discussions about other countries and the world in general.
Cheers!
Christine
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