Last night, after teaching, I met Sarah at the Coffee shack and joined her for a roast dinner. It was real good. A big green salad with everything from tomato, olives, feta, pumpkin seeds together with traditional Xhosa bread for starter. I was already kind of full by that time. But I finished everything on my main course plate as well. Generous helpings of butternut, beetroot, broccoli, potato and roast beef with a nice gravy. Wow, all that for only R45. I’ll definitely do that again!
Anyway, after all that, it started raining again just as we were about to go home, but we decided to make a quick dash!
So, there was this dog that followed me since earlier the evening, I’ve seen him around often and I feel that we have a connection. Sometimes when I go to the beach, he’ll walk with me. All the people have different stories about whom the dog belongs to, I don’t think he actually belongs to anyone. I’m seriously considering adopting this dog, cause he’s already full-grown and he looks like he might have the ability to be loyal to me, if we build up a relationship. And that he would actually protect me if I were ever in some sort of danger. Of course, this is a decision not to be made lightly, so I won’t do it hastily.
But, last night, as I walked to my car, the dog followed me and looked like he wanted to come with me. As I got in my car, he looked a bit confused and it was raining and I thought, maybe I must just take him with me. He wanted to get in my car, but my car is a 2 door one and that would’ve meant he had to jump on my lap. I tried to make some space for him to get in the back, but I was a bit uncertain if it all was the right idea and the dog wasn’t sure what to do about this 2door car, so he backed off a bit. I thought, well maybe this isn’t the right time and I’ll still have to consider the idea more carefully. It was close though.
In the evening, with some very spicy lentil and red kidney bean soup…
Went to pick up Sarah at the other side, had to wait for her a bit, so I went to say hi to the beading ladies and take them some vetkoeke. One lady, Lucy asked me to help her string her beads, so all the mamas had questions to ask me, about how old I am, where’s my husband and stuff like that. I really want to spend more time with these ladies, they’ll help me make good progress with the isiXhosa. Cause right now, my knowledge is still sadly minimal.
Right, so finally me and Sarah were headed for the orphanage outside of town, but not without me picking up that dog that I kind of really want to adopt… He was quite happy to take a nap on the front seat while Sarah and her baby sat in the back.
At the orphanage I wasn’t even worried that the dog (I’m referring to him as the/that dog because he goes by a couple of names of which I don’t know is the right one and also I’m trying not to get too attached to him if I’m not really going to adopt him) might bite the children. He was very well behaved and just hid behind me a few times when the kids got too touchy with him.
There are 16 children living at the orphanage. It looks like they’re pretty well looked after. The are using one of the rondavels as their little pre-school and they have a storeroom with some toys. They have a couple of books for their little library and I gave them the books I had. I realized that most of the books they probably won’t be able to use very well, since none of the kids can really speak English. They do know a couple of English songs and that might be something one can work on. I must think about what else I could do at the orphanage. Perhaps go some mornings and help out in the little school..? Or in the afternoon for some quick activity, to expose the kids to some English…
After the orphanage, Sarah and Capri came over to the caravan for tea and of course Mr Dog came with. I just wanted to see how he would handle the situation. Again he was extremely well behaved and didn’t even chase the cat. I gave him some bread and water which he gulped down happily. I took him back with Sarah and luckily he ran off after some other dog after a while, so I wasn’t faced with the decision of leaving or taking him… For now, we’ll just build up a slow casual friendship, until I know what to do about this situation.
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