[White] Man's Best Friend

A tubby 12 year old boy named Tebo is my only friend so far. He lives two doors down, the last house in the row of four unnumbered government houses. Everyday after school he comes over and asks me questions—about South Africa, because he’s convinced that I’m coloured and not from America. He’s a good kid, with a good head on his shoulders but this story isn’t about the 12 year old boy who teaches me Setswana and helps keep the boredom at bay. This 12 year old has a puppy, the pup of the former volunteer’s dog. The story is about his young dog named Tiger. I am good friends with this kid’s dog. Tiger, with a crick in his tail and floppy ears. Back home he’d be your all American ragamuffin mutt. He chases cars and has fleas and ticks. He also kills chickens, thus making him a liability. Tiger lives on the edge. He’s a dumb dog, but he is charismatic and loyally waits by the door when I let him in my yard. He waits because he knows that I will feed him. Tebo doesn’t. He claims that there is no food for him. One day I spilled too much salt into my batch of cornbread and the brackish taste left me feeling dehydrated. I decided to give this bad batch of cornbread to the emaciated dog. Tebo saw and inquired what I was feeding the dog. “Cornbread” I said. Batswana don’t eat cornbread and so it’s a huge hit. In Botswana, corn meal (or maize meal as the rest of the world calls it) is called phaleche, and phaleche is used to make a starchy stiff side dish similar to day old grits. Its not bad. Fascinated by this “phaleche bread,” as most Batswana are, my 12 year old neighbor proceeded to eat over half of the salty batch and would have left the dog nothing had I not grabbed the bag of bread from his sticky hands and fed the starving dog. I feed Tiger often. Today I bought a bag of Alpo and decided that I would feed him everyday. After feeding and petting him, I decided that I would teach him how to play Frisbee. People stared as I talked baby talk to a dim, car chasing dog. “Go get it!” I yelled out in the highest pitched baby talk voice. Tiger tucked his tail between his legs and hid behind the trashcan. I chased him and put the Frisbee in his mouth. Tiger accepted it gently, like it was a powdery white elephant that would trample him if he didn’t handle it with care. He walked away with it, and then sat next to it, looking at me. What was he to do with a Frisbee? Fat happy, confidently sharp dogs are created, as are timid, meek ones like Tiger. It reminded me of my last day at my homestay. I spoiled my host family’s dog and was going to miss her. She was old and fat, like an American dog. Her table scraps doubled when I got to Botswana and I’m sure her body mass increased two fold due to my presence. Setswana food is not bad, but I just couldn’t eat mounds of it. The serving sizes are overwhelming so the dog ate well for those two months. I tried to take a picture of her before I left, but she wouldn’t let me. The same dog who, everyday was so excited when I got home from training ran with her tail between her legs at the sight of a camera pointed at her.