Dogs

Little language lesson for you: “Ata” = Grandpa, “Apa” = Grandma. Otherwise known as my landlords.

I only post every time I have e-mail access, so you have to wait in suspense to read what is happening in my life. That way you get a small taste of the suspense I have to deal with, waiting to find out what is happening in your lives! (Moral of the story: SEND SNAIL MAIL. It comes in three, four weeks tops. This last spell of no-e-mail lasted almost 7?)

On with the show. I now live in my own apartment which is pretty cool. It’s actually an extra “house” attached to an older couple’s house, so I still get a banya, Russian/Kazakh practice, and an occasional free meal. It’s also pretty safe, since I live on the same compound as a family I know and trust, and honestly, I couldn’t ask for a better living situation.

A few times a week, it is nice enough now that I can go out and run for awhile. This usually gets me stares from the locals, and chased by dogs who think that anything going faster than walking speed must be worth chasing. I try to limit my path to roads through fields, avoiding humans and dogs when at all possible. But this last week, out of nowhere, this furry black mass ran up from behind me. It was Akhtose, my family’s dog, and he is the laziest dog I’ve ever seen. I was so surprised to see him running with me. I was feeling really proud of the fact that I got the lazy dog to come with me, when I realized that I was taking the trash bag out to the trash field (seriously) and that was really the only reason he tagged along – to inspect the contents of the bag.

But a couple minutes later, he had cut across the field (the trash didn’t have anything edible, all food trash goes in a bucket for the cows) and came with me! Sure, he would get distracted by piles of what could have been food, or sheep carcasses, but for the most part he stayed with me until we reached a small stream. Then, I lost him. There was just so much down there that he needed to take more time investigating. Ordinarily, I would just let the dog find its way home. That’s what dogs do, right? Then I started thinking about everything that happened in the last two weeks…

***** TWO WEEKS AGO*****

I came home to hear Ata screaming at Bebarse, the other dog. Bebarse was large and ferocious, and tied up. The perfect home security system. He barked at anything that moved, and at night when he wasn’t tied up, he would jump at strangers (only to knock them to the ground and lick them on the face, but strangers don’t know that). “You stupid dog!” Ata kept yelling. Apparently Bebarse had been digging in the potatoes the night before, and Ata was waving his shovel in the air and pointing to the mess. One afternoon, after three straight nights of this behavior, there was a knock at my door. It was a man with a horse asking me for help with Bebarse.

Apparently he was afraid of the barking dog, and he needed help untying him so he could “come with me to watch the cows.” I stalled as much as possible, because Ata and Apa weren’t home and I couldn’t just give the dog away to this man with a horse. But the conversation reached a certain point where I had no choice but to give the man Bebarse on his leash. The man kept saying “Bebarse always comes with me!” And he rode off dragging a reluctant Bebarse with him.

20 minutes later I went outside to check my laundry on the line when I saw Ata by his garden. “Ata!” I started, “Bebarse-“
“Bebarse is gone!” He proclaimed triumphantly. “Now my potatoes are safe!” Then I thought more closely about what the man with the horse was saying, and he wasn’t saying ‘Bebarse always comes with me” but “Bebarse is coming with me for always.” So I casually asked Ata when Bebarse was coming back, and he said “Never! Ha ha!”

30 minutes after realizing that I had, in fact, given the family dog away, there was another knock on my door. It was Apa, tears streaming down her face, and she asked “Where is Bebarse?” I said maybe she should talk to Ata, but that a man with a horse came and took him away to watch cows. I tried to say that I didn’t understand what was happening (like that makes it better). Then I explained that Ata probably asked his friend to take Bebarse because of what happened to the potatoes. She grew indignant, “He was only playing… He was such a beautiful dog. A good dog. He always barked… Such a good dog… At least we still have Akhtose, AKHTOSE!” And she left calling her second-rate, not-so-beautiful-or-ferocious dog.

***** ONE WEEK AGO *****

Since Bebarse’s departure, Apa has been really depressed. Her typical answer to “Good morning, how are you?” is “Fine. Bebarse is gone…” So I wasn’t so surprised to get the same answer today, but then she followed it with “He was so sad without us, he died.” We sat and remembered the good dog that barked at strangers.

Ata later expressed his true feelings in saying “Now the potatoes are really safe!”
*********
Like I said, ordinarily I would just let the dog find his own way home. But we were kind of far away, and near a large road and if anything happened to him, and I was the last person to see him… There was no way I was returning without that dog. So I lured him with rocks that looked like food, pretending there was something I was chasing, anything. When we finally got home, I was exhausted, but he made it back and I knew I did everything I could to make sure they didn’t lose the lazy (but doesn’t go through the potatoes) dog. And I know he probably would have made it home ok anyway, but I think Akhtose appreciated having someone to play with.

And now he sleeps on my porch.