My desire to love all the street dogs is constantly battling my equally strong desire to not get, and consequently give, my family fleas (among other diseases).
*Side note: I know it’s been a while since I posted...and I feel like this might be a regular thing, although I would like to try and stick to a “at-least-once-every-two-weeks schedule”. We’ll see if I’m able to stick to that; I also keep a hand-written diary/journal, and so when I’m behind on that, plus this, and then I write that, I find I have little interest in recounting the same things here. I will try my best to keep this blog updated, as I know I have millions upon millions of readers interested in knowing what’s happening in my life here in Macedonia.*
Something I’ve wanted to share for a while has been about the dogs and puppies that roam the streets here. There are quite a few stray dogs roaming the streets, and my American heart is sensitive to seeing their plight. I’m having a hard time with it as an animal lover. The treatment of animals in general here is one of my self-identified cultural challenges I’m facing.
Some cultural background:
Owning dogs here isn’t that common, yet it’s becoming more common in the cities and mostly among ethnic Macedonians, and very rarely among ethnic Albanians. In Islam, dogs are considered dirty, and animals aren’t seen as pets, but rather what they are: animals. Animals don’t live inside, they live outside. I found out recently that my current family “had” a cat for twelve years! It never came inside and they just fed it their extra food...for twelve years. Naturally (from an American perspective), my interest was piqued and I asked them,
“Aww! What was its name?”
“It didn’t have a name.”
“Ummm....what? What do you mean?! What did you call it?!”
“Cat.”
 |
| I met this cat in Glodji and named him 1.2 minutes later. His name is "Miku" which means "Friend" in Albanian. He's SO nice and just looking at him causes him to purr. His best assets are his cuddliness, cleanliness, and lack of fleas. I hope he is still at my future site when I move there in a couple weeks. |
My wise father pointed out that giving animals names definitely humanizes them and that’s just not a common practice in my Muslim, Albanian village. It’s strange to me because every stray that I meet I’ve given a name. My family thinks I’m insane and worries for my safety constantly; they definitely believe that all the “wild” dogs here are very evil and will bite you.
O contraire!
 |
| Scrappy. So happy, so hopeful, so friendly. |
The highlight of the stray dogs here have been the adorable puppies that had moved in next to our school and stayed there for about three-four weeks. We named them: Storm (he has mutant toes and Storm is a mutant from X-men), Lulëstrydhë (strawberry in Albanian, “Lule” for short, which means flower), Tia (the runt of the litter), Chunk (after Chunk from the Goonies, he’s the biggest), and Polo (he was always wandering, so his name came from Marco Polo). The mom’s name is Lili and she’s very very sweet. I love them all and couldn’t get enough of them. Except I never held them close to me, always rolled up my sleeves, and vigorously scrubbed my hands and forearms afterwards (yes, I’m aware that fleas jump 20 ft. or so, but they also don’t leave their host very often...so, silver lining!). Someone in the community also likes them because they built this really cute little shelter next to the school so they could get out of the rain.
Please enjoy this video about some of the dogs (mainly puppies) in Dobroshte that I made. It contains much better quality and content and waaayyyy more cuteness than my previous cow sacrifice video. Waayyyy cuter. At one point around the 0:40 mark, there's a horrifyingly cute moment where ALL the puppies start scratching themselves at once...so...many...insects all over them.
It was hard sometimes when we were in our language classes, because children would get out of school and “play” with the puppies. We don’t always know what they did to them, but we would occasionally hear the puppies yelping and it would just break our hearts. We yelled at them as best as we could in Albanian, and it always came out as “No! They are puppies. They are babies. Be careful! No *motion throwing rocks, point at sticks*. No. No.” The children got better with the pups and after watching them play and “yelling” at them, we came to see that their intentions were generally good but sometimes a little misguided. Through example we were able to model how to appropriately play with the dogs.
SAD NEWS ALERT! Don't read if you are happy and want to stay that way.
No seriously, it's sad.
I did warn you. Just sayin'.
No seriously, it's sad.
I did warn you. Just sayin'.
Unfortunately it breaks my heart to report that after we had our site visits to our future families for three days, we came back and there were only two puppies left: Polo and Lulë. We talked to some local kids and one girl told us that one was hit by a car, one drowned in the ditch, and they don’t know about the other one...he “probably drowned too”. This is why you should never love things. My roomie Anne Fox tried to explain this to me for many years, and I never listened.
To end on a happy note: I've been flea- and insect-free the whole time here (knock on wood)!
Moral of the story: pet all the dogs and cats, just don't let them touch your clothes and wash your hands afterwards.
