i remember hitting this point last summer... when you get immune to the insane stories that show up on your doorstep each day. stories about parents that got visa's to america and left a 5 year old son behind to sell peanuts on the road. stories about people wanting the $40 to complete their highschool education so that a few doors might open their way. stories about being hungry. it all becomes normalized.
it takes moments like one that i had tonight to snap me back to my senses and remember that these kinds of things don't happen every day and arent okay, to put it in simplest terms.
the new puppy at home has caused quite a buzz here. yesterday after talking with my family on the phone, i recapped the conversation to a friend on camp. she asked about updates and i mentioned that our puppy had been given a time out in school for humping the other puppies. her face went blank. "you send your dogs to school?". "well.. yes.." "to learn what exactly?" "oh you know.. how to behave... sit. stay. lie down." she went home that night to tell the story to her family. the howled and she came back for additional details about the life of a dog. dog food, dog birthdays and dog christmas presents are a bit hard to wrap your head around here. somehow, im telling a stream of humans that i cant send them to school and that just asking the resident white lady isnt a solution to their problems. meanwhile. my puppy is in a time out at puppy school. how are we on the same planet?
right after that though, amelia told me a story about her old dog. this dog was one of those ones with really good human instincts. her grandson was sick and while amelia and her daughter slept, the dog would stay awake and keep an eye on the kid. when the kid cried, the dog would wake up the two of them. when they carried him to the hospital, they couldnt get the dog to leave from under the kid's bed. when a friend had a baby, the dog stayed until the baby was born and then went outside and barked until all the neighbours came. the way she talked about her relationship with the dog reminded me a lot about how we felt about our neighbour's old dog. all of a sudden, we were all back on the same planet again.
and then she told me about how the dog died. apparently one day while amelia was at school, her neighbour had a dream about a brown dog. in the morning, this neighbour saw amelia's brown dog passing by the house. at this point, i thought it was going to be a nice story about this woman going and helping the dog die or whatever. not so. the woman fixed a plank of wood with a few nails and beat the dog to death. apparently the dream about the brown dog wasnt a good one. figure that one out.
either way, i've agreed to send a picture of my puppy at graduation to amelia. she will show it to her family when they're feeling sad... remind them of what the crazy white people do with all the extra money they have.
another stat that i came across this week in a pathetic attempt to catch up on world news... "Diarrhea kills 1.5 million young children a year in developing countries — more than AIDS, malaria and measles combined — but only 4 in 10 of those who need the oral rehydration solution that can prevent death for pennies get it.". meanwhile, i hear canada has begun a mad swine flu vaccination campaign. i believe the country has seen... 50 deaths thus far?
if anyone can wrap their heads around this.. let me know. i can't.
No comments:
Post a Comment