1 September, Spring day

Went to the Christian school today to hear how things are going to work out.  It turns out that they can only pay me R1 500 a month at the most… (They rely on the children’s school fees to pay the teachers and it appears that many parents struggle to pay that)

 That puts me in a difficult situation.  Cause I’m quite excited to go and teach there, I’ll only be teaching Afrikaans and English and perhaps later Arts and Culture – that might be fun.  I think I’ll be able to make a difference and I think it will be good for me too, to have a routine thing going again here and spend my time with the school children.   Anyway...

MYDOG

I told you he was back after being missing for 2 months!?  Well, today I saw him lying there and went over to him and saw that something wasn’t quite right.  He didn’t want to get up and didn’t want me to touch his legs.  Then I saw that he was really hurt and could hardly get up.  Later, when he wanted to lie down again, it was so painful for him that he kept going in a circle to build up the courage to lie down. 

I asked Sarah to bring him some food from the dogs at Bomvu and it was clear he was really hungry.  He’s really skinny and not looking too good.  Then he just lay there and seemed afraid of everyone walking past him too closely.  Eventually I just couldn’t leave him there so I brought my car closer so he could get in.  It was a bit of a mission to get him in, cause he’s really in pain.  There are no scars, but I suspect something might be broken.  He just lay down on the seat and seemed relieved to be out of the chaos.  When I got home, he seriously couldn’t get out of the car, I tried to lift him, but at some point he would even start to growl at me, very out of his character.  Then I opened the tin food that Sarah gave me and when the poor thing smelled that he had to do his best to wobble out of there. 

I put a blanket for him in my tent and fed him a panado with the tin food.  After he ate, he went to lie down and passed out solidly for almost 3 hours.  He woke up later and I gave him some of my soup.  He hasn’t gotten up yet.  He’s sleeping again now, so I hope tomorrow he’ll feel better.  I’ll only be able to take him to the SPCA  in Umtata on Monday… I hope he’s going to make it this weekend.  I don’t know what my landlord will think of this situation, but for now the dog is immobile.