The Tsh 50,000 Dog

After begging for a guard dog the entire year, and being told "no" time and time again for a variety of reasons, of course we finally get one during our last month of work.

Henry.

That's how stuff like this always works, I guess. Ndo maisha tu. It's just life. This principle explains why we had next to no friends for our first six months, for example, and why once we finally started to make them, it was just in time to get really attached and build up for a series of tearful goodbyes. A cynic would say "too little, too late." And I've traditionally been a cynic. But something has changed inside of me in the past couple of years. An "all or nothing" mindset has given way to one that is much more appreciative of the here and now -- even if the here and now can't last.

So even though we've been asking for a dog since August, and even though Hunter and I are outie at the end of June, I'm just happy to have the little guy around at all, even if he ain't gonna guard shit.

Henry is the opposite of an mbwa mkali. He's a cute little guy who wouldn't hurt a fly. He's also healthy with clean fur. He is a Mzungu dog, essentially -- on another plane from those ratty strays that roam the streets of Tanzania, in packs, with members that look identical to those ratty strays that roam the streets of every other third world country on the earth. Sam calls those types "third world dogs." Henry is a different.

Maybe instead of writing Mbwa Mkali on our gate as a warning, we should just be honest and write Mbwa Mzuri

The reason for this, though, is Andrea. To call her an "animal lover" would be like saying that Michael Moore is a "cheesburger lover." It is understating things just a tad. Andrea is obsessed with animals, and if you are one, there could not be a better person out there to save you from a life of K9 street hustlin' than her.

Tanzanians don't understand the concept of treating animals like people. We cooh and cah at our dogs like they're babies; Wabongo find this an amusing aspect of Mzungu behavior. We pet them and make sure they're getting a balanced diet; Wabongo kick them and feel grateful if they themselves can get both protein and carbohydrates two times a day. Half the times, people here dont even give their dogs names -- and when they do, like Baba Juma, they'll use the two names interchangeably for either one. And they're not feeding them Kibbles n' Bits, either. Dogs are lucky if they get to feed off of whatever scraps its owners throw out after dinner; otherwise, they've got to go search for their daily bread in trash piles and gutters. And one more thing: they're not "pets" here; they're security guards.

You could therefore imagine Andrea's relief when I told her we were looking for a dog. With us (wink, Wazungu), she could be sure Henry isn't going to end up chained outside with only ugali to eat for the rest of his days.

My Chaco's are the only thing this mbwa is interested in attacking.

Looks pretty fierce, huh? Well he's not. Henry -- that was the name given to him by Andrea -- is actually a giant kuma. Use context clues to figure out what that means. (Hint: Henry does not actually have a kuma; he just is one).

Ask yourself this question: WHAT KIND OF "GUARD DOG" ALLOWS HIMSELF TO BE KIDNAPPED?

The answer: One that is a kuma.

Oh yeah, my hair, too.

That's right, Henry was kidnapped from Andrea's house, just three days before she was scheduled to fly back to Canada, and just two days before she was scheduled to hand her puppy over to us. I still haven't been able to get the whole story; Andrea was gone by the time I found out that he'd actually been recovered. The last I heard from her was a text that said he'd been stolen. The next morning, Hunter and I set off on a weekend bike trip around the slopes of Kilimanjaro with Sam and some of her peeps. When we got back to A-Town Sunday afternoon, the last thing the two of us expected to see in the driveway was the panting face of little Henry, happy to see someone that might pet and/or feed him, as he ran up to greet two strange men who could have just as easily been foes as friends.

We ask for a guard dog all year, and we get a cute little puppy instead. Maisha tu.

Andrea's former roommate Meg, who is still living in the same house from which Henry was abducted, was able to fill me in on the details of what happened a little better, but honestly, I still am not 100 percent sure of what the hell happened. I know that someone came into their compound, took the dog off his chain, and walked out. I know that everyone was too distracted by Jane Goodall's visit to notice (they work for the Jane Goodall Institute, and she was visiting that day, actually sitting inside the house when Henry was stolen). I know that their Maasai askari, who hates Henry, was conveniently late to work that day. And I know that someone came over after a few hours claiming that he was Henry's rightful owner (fact: Andrea found him on the streets a few weeks ago, sick with parvovirus and near death), and that he wanted Tsh 150,000 (about $135-$140) for his return.

Henry was being held hostage.

What would you have done in that situation? Me, I can't say exactly. But something tells me that I would lose my mind. That is something that happens to me from time to time. "Temporary insanity," I suppose. I can only hope that I wouldn't reach for my machete and start chopping off the dudes fingers until he told me where the dog was. Wow. My blood starts to boil just envisioning being in that position. I'm just glad I've never been placed there, because I wouldn't want to see the direction in which my lightheaded rage would lead me.

Andrea, though, who loves Henry like her own child (no, really, like her own child) started to bargain, bringing the dude down from Tsh 150,000 to "just" 50,000.

"Just 50?" was actually the first thought that passed through my mind when I heard that that was the amount Andrea had had to pay to get Henry back. I've been in Tanzania for a long time, guys. Nothing shocks me anymore. Nothing.

Except for two things: that we finally got a "guard" dog, and that he was returned at all.

Henry wants to be an inside dog. We want the opposite.

Henry is a terrible name for a dog. All agreed? We've been looking for something new to call him since Andrea agreed to let us have him before going back to Newfoundland. Something in Swahili, preferably.

"How about Barak?" I proposed. Baraka is "blessing," and I thought dropping the final 'a' might bring Obama some good karma. Lali nodded her head in approval, even though she's not even American. But then I thought about the possibility of a (gasp!) McCain victory in November, and decided it'd be like getting your girlfriend's name tattooed on your forehead, risking a future state of affairs whereby you're reminded of an immense heartache every time you passed a mirror or a tinted window. Barak was no good.

The next idea that popped into my mind was to look up how to say "hostage" in my dictionary: Mateka. That was nixed by Lali; she's gonna be here for the next two years, after all, so she has veto power.

No Barak, no Mateka. What the hell are we gonna call this 50,000 shilling dog?

(Insert lightbulb being turned on above my head).

"Hamsini!" I yelled in a moment of eurkeka. "Fifty" in Swahili.

I immediately set to work writing "The Tsh 50,000 Dog" on Hamsini's collar with Sharpie. Just in case he gets lost one day, so someone will know exactly how much to charge on the ransom. That dude just better hope the next people to live here don't suffer from light headed rage.

Stuck in the gate door. Real scary, Hamsini.

Oy.