So this morning I was so happy. My friend Ousmane from Guinea called and he said that Yogi is doing great and everybody in the village knows him and likes him and that I’ll not be forgotten in Santou as long as he is around. He also said that his wife Lundi is pregnant and going to give birth soon and that if it is a girl he is going to name her Dorian, after me.
I was so content! First of all that Yogi is not only still alive, but great (and fat, according to Ousmane), and then that I became aware that I had touched Ousmane’s life in my too short time in Guinea so much so that he would name his first born child after me. I mean, I had heard of that happening to volunteers but I didn’t think it ACTUALLY happened, or that it was really rare, and maybe it is, but nonetheless if it’s a girl her name will be mine! (if it’s a boy, Ousmane said, that will present somewhat of a problem).
So it renewed my desire to go back to Santou after COS and visit and maybe even try to take Yogi home with me (but that’s just going to have to be a whole lot of serendipity for it to happen). It also made me miss Guinea so much all over again and lament what I could have done there and the friendships I could really have cultivated, friendships impossible for me to find here due if nothing else to the language barrier.
Then I came back to site. And was informed that Puppy was hit by a car on Friday and died. Which brought back that awful day when our car ran over a dog and then I just sat there wondering if he suffered or if it was quick and just hoping it was quick and being glad to still have Doggie and Magellan (though I thought about how sad Magellan would be to have lost her friend).
Then, after getting all of Magellan’s stuff all set up (filling her litter box, cleaning her water and food bowls and filling with fresh water), I was informed that Magellan is also dead. W-T-F?!?!?! So in case you were keeping track, Mali has now managed to kill 4 of my pets in only nine months: Macguyver (cat), Shamu (chick), Puppy (dog) and Magellan (cat). Unless you also want to count my chickens Chester and Philip, whose deaths I consented to (they were sick) which would bring our grand total to six pets in nine months. Awesome.
I couldn’t understand how she died (they didn’t really say), only that she was found dead in Setu’s house. Or something or someone killed her there (or maybe Setu accidentally locked her in there when she went out of town) but at any rate that is where she died.
And so now I’m just f-ing depressed all over again. Both of my companions are gone in the few days I was away. And I’m too scared to get another one (and I could, Yusuf still has puppies) because it will probably just die and if it doesn’t I’ll have to worry about being too attached to it and wanting to take it home.
Now that it’s getting dark I keep looking around for Magellan, because that’s when she’d usually come out, hoping that my family was just kidding (they sometimes joke about stuff like that). But they’re not kidding and she’s dead and I’m alone again in this village where I can’t communicate with anyone.
They say you have to take the bad with the good but why does the bad have to arrive right on the heels of the good so that you can’t even enjoy it for a moment?
I hate being a transfer.
I was so content! First of all that Yogi is not only still alive, but great (and fat, according to Ousmane), and then that I became aware that I had touched Ousmane’s life in my too short time in Guinea so much so that he would name his first born child after me. I mean, I had heard of that happening to volunteers but I didn’t think it ACTUALLY happened, or that it was really rare, and maybe it is, but nonetheless if it’s a girl her name will be mine! (if it’s a boy, Ousmane said, that will present somewhat of a problem).
So it renewed my desire to go back to Santou after COS and visit and maybe even try to take Yogi home with me (but that’s just going to have to be a whole lot of serendipity for it to happen). It also made me miss Guinea so much all over again and lament what I could have done there and the friendships I could really have cultivated, friendships impossible for me to find here due if nothing else to the language barrier.
Then I came back to site. And was informed that Puppy was hit by a car on Friday and died. Which brought back that awful day when our car ran over a dog and then I just sat there wondering if he suffered or if it was quick and just hoping it was quick and being glad to still have Doggie and Magellan (though I thought about how sad Magellan would be to have lost her friend).
Then, after getting all of Magellan’s stuff all set up (filling her litter box, cleaning her water and food bowls and filling with fresh water), I was informed that Magellan is also dead. W-T-F?!?!?! So in case you were keeping track, Mali has now managed to kill 4 of my pets in only nine months: Macguyver (cat), Shamu (chick), Puppy (dog) and Magellan (cat). Unless you also want to count my chickens Chester and Philip, whose deaths I consented to (they were sick) which would bring our grand total to six pets in nine months. Awesome.
I couldn’t understand how she died (they didn’t really say), only that she was found dead in Setu’s house. Or something or someone killed her there (or maybe Setu accidentally locked her in there when she went out of town) but at any rate that is where she died.
And so now I’m just f-ing depressed all over again. Both of my companions are gone in the few days I was away. And I’m too scared to get another one (and I could, Yusuf still has puppies) because it will probably just die and if it doesn’t I’ll have to worry about being too attached to it and wanting to take it home.
Now that it’s getting dark I keep looking around for Magellan, because that’s when she’d usually come out, hoping that my family was just kidding (they sometimes joke about stuff like that). But they’re not kidding and she’s dead and I’m alone again in this village where I can’t communicate with anyone.
They say you have to take the bad with the good but why does the bad have to arrive right on the heels of the good so that you can’t even enjoy it for a moment?
I hate being a transfer.
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