Lost and emaciated, he began randomly following me around the village with a pathetically hopeful look in his little brown eyes. I could tell he was severely underfed. He was all alone and seemed so desperate for attention; it broke my heart just to look at him. Despite his wretched condition, he also seemed to be quite clever and alert; so my boyfriend, Kasang and I decided to take him home and do our best to care for him and at least get him back on his feet, whatever that means here. Since he is a wild dog, there’s obviously a lot less to worry about than when you have a pet at home: If he runs away, I won’t need to worry where he will find his food; it just means he’s chosen to go back to the freedom of his old life. If we want him to sleep outside, we don’t have to feel guilty about it, he’s probably never slept inside before anyway. I don’t need to keep him on a leash because there are no cars for him to get hit by and no rude, over weight animal services officer around to give me a ticket. Then again, Kasang pointed out that there are other risks involved with pet ownership in the village; the possibility of it getting eaten by a tiger, for example, or even gored by an angry water buffalo. Perhaps it’s best just to focus on the advantages.
At first Kasang wanted to name him ‘cranky’ simply because he likes to call me that too if I get grouchy about the food or the weather here, but the villagers couldn’t pronounce it and kept calling him ‘Clinky’ (a soft ‘D’ instead of an ‘L’ sound) so I suggested ‘Lucky’ instead, since it’s easier for them to say and then I won’t be so tempted to laugh in the face of a person trying to call our dog. Plus, Lucky is more than fitting, since he is lucky in more ways than one, particularly that we feed him and I’m constantly giving him biscuits. I’m hoping to train the hell out of him since we are together so often and the kids in the village absolutely love it when I make him sit and shake and walk on his hind legs. (They are also very impressed that he speaks English :) When we have to leave the village for a few days we just have Kasang’s mom feed him for us for a few days untill we get back. We even have to tie him up now when we leave so that he doesn’t chase the motorcycle back to
Besides dog training, I’ve been keeping very busy with our projects in the village. The re-building of the school is complete and I’m nearly finished with the mural I’m painting on the outside. It’s been extremely difficult conditions to work in. Wet walls are not ideal for painting (more mud and manure) and though we supposedly only have a few weeks of heavy rain left, for the time being it still feels like I’m in the middle of a bible story where everyone’s being punished for their sins by a constant, bitter deluge. Despite the challenges however, (including having to use kerosene as paint thinner after we ran out of turpentine, that stuff dries out your skin like gangbusters), I think the mural is shaping up nicely; just a few more adjustments and we’ll be all done.
I’ve also been hard at work making my ‘studio’ as cheaply fabulous as possible. (Did I say fabulous?) Perhaps a more appropriate adjective would be workable. But, my definition of fabulous has broadened significantly since moving to Gurje (where electricity and running water is fabulous). I have just completed an abstract landscape that I am quite excited about, as soon as it’s dry I will photograph it and send it along for your approval. I hope I’m not abusing any friendships by asking for help getting my artwork noticed, but there’s just only so much I can do from here. I’ve been trying to enter contests on line, but it seems that most of them want at least a $30 entry fee and I just can’t spare it at the moment (I have antibiotics to buy!). Now that I have truly committed to the long hot agony of trying to keep alive on my artwork, I think that I will have to shamelessly and constantly ask for help and advice of anyone willing to give it. I hope you don’t mind.
Anyway, I suppose there’s no big news this time, but the rains are supposed to be coming to an end and perhaps when work gets back to normal I’ll have a little bit more to write about. Until then, the kids are doing great, I’m pretty healthy (aside from a gigantic leech bite on my ass –don’t ask) and I hope to be writing again soon with some more artwork to show you, until then I remain: your wet little artist village hermit,
-j
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