They're Sort of Like Pets

THEY’RE SORT OF LIKE PETS

            It’s a big deal for a Peace Corps volunteer to get a pet. There are few other decisions of this magnitude to make here. Others of this importance include extreme cutting or not cutting of one’s hair and engaging in romantic relationships with locals.  Why think twice about getting a pet? Some reasons are obvious. Owning an animal (particularly a dog) is a big responsibility: they must be fed and looked after. It can be difficult to leave town for a weekend or for vacation because it is a challenge to find someone in the village willing to look after the animal. And then there is the problem of what to do with the pet when you leave service as a volunteer.  You can try to find someone (maybe a new volunteer) to adopt your pet or you can take your companion back home with you. The former is not easy; the latter is very expensive.  

            I’d say that about five volunteers in our group own dogs. None has a cat, but a recently departed volunteer just passed on her cat to a new arrival. One of our volunteers adopted a hen that enjoyed watching DVDs, but in the end the hen ran away: she preferred the company of other poultry. Dogs can be good guards, and so can add some level of security, especially to younger women volunteers. They are even better companions, and volunteers living alone in remote locations can use loyal friendships. Cats are companions as well, plus they keep mice and other vermin away.

 

A typical dog in our neighborhood

            Almost no dogs or cats get spayed or neutered, so there is an ample supply of puppies and kittens. The dogs are mainly shorthaired, mixed breed, and medium sized. Some look like greyhounds. The cats are usually gray and white with tiger markings. Most all pets get rabies shots, which is a good thing since they roam free a lot of the time. On that point, early one morning we happened to witness a pair of dogs mating on the empty lot next to ours. It went on for quite a while, which I found interesting. Stephanie noted that the female spent a lot of her time yawning – literally. That female then went on to have puppies some months later, and the puppies eventually got distributed. We did not take one.

            Batswana have a complicated relationship with domestic animals. Cats are not too common, but they have the run of the inside and outside of their owner’s house, and are always on hunting patrol. Except for Peace Corps volunteers and a very few locals with soft hearts, Batswana dog owners keep their pet outdoors. Canines sometimes get mistreated, which can be difficult to watch. A rambunctious dog may well get hit with a stick or a stone. Often the dog does not even get a name: it responds to “ntsa” (n-tcha), the Setswana word for dog. We now feel respected enough in Goodhope to intervene if someone (usually a boy) abuses a dog.

            We did not want to be tied down to a dog in Botswana, in part because there is a tail-wagger awaiting our return home. Some volunteers report great experiences with pooches, some not. One volunteer’s dog in a nearby village got accused of killing a neighbor’s goat. The matter got taken to the village chief for resolution. According to the volunteer, the dog was innocent, but there was evidence to the contrary. The chief decided that the neighbor should be compensated for the goat. But instead of the volunteer paying, the chief ponied up the money himself. The chief also decided that in the future the dog would need to remain tied up outside. That was not practical, so the volunteer gave away the dog. Another volunteer’s dog got poisoned – the same fate suffered by her landlady’s dog.

            It is not that we lack domestic animals in our neighborhood. Most of the land around our 80’ by 120’ fenced lot is tribal (i.e. common) land. Cattle and goats and donkeys and chickens roam free, munching on whatever grass and leaves and bugs they can find. The cattle and goats tend to walk in small herds, so there are often calves or kids playing amidst their elders. Sometimes a calf or kid gets separated from the herd, and the youngster will moo or bleat pitifully until the family gets reunited.

 

Cattle on the path outside of our fence

Goat with her kid outside of our fence

            Donkeys are less common, and more annoying. They seem really stupid, and they tolerate hauling ramshackle carts around the village in teams of one to six. But some donkeys have figured out how to use their snouts to flip the latch on our fence gate, and sometimes in the middle of the night one or two will sneak into our yard to graze on what little vegetation there is here.

 

This donkey may look stupid, but he's surveying the scene and plotting when to open the latch of our gate

            Our neighborhood favorites, however, are the chickens. A nearby lady keeps a nice flock, raised for their meat. A large and handsome rooster leads them as they wander about. He sports black, red and blonde feathers and travels with a harem of several black hens. The hens in turn have many chicks. We have watched – with surrogate parental pride – as the chicks grow up. We will sadly note their absence one day, meaning that they have been sold so as to end up in somebody’s pot. While they are well nourished, the chickens still enjoy it when we toss out our kitchen waste onto the empty lot next door. The goats and dogs like to join in as well. It takes only a few hours for every scrap to disappear. The hardest sell: avocado peels, but eventually a hungry goat will scarf it down.

 

Rooster with two hens munching on the kitchen waste that we throw over the fence

            With all of this talk about farm animals, readers may be saying to themselves: these volunteers have a lot of time on their hands. That may well be true. Without television, there are more occasions to just see what is going on outside. It reminds me of a clever animation created a while back by a pair of Peace Corps volunteers serving in Zambia and Botswana. One of the lines in it is: “you know you’re a Peace Corps volunteer when watching goats for several hours at a stretch seems like a good use of your time.”