Chibwa - Little Dog

Have you read or listened to the Jungle Doctor books?  There are stories about a doctor that lived and worked in Tanzania.  The audio books are GREAT!  In listening to the books, we hear many words in Swahili and also the local tribal language Gogo (or Kigogo.)  The doctor must have mainly worked with the Gogo people. 

Second stop.  Time to walk.

It was a lot of fun for us, in a way, to be in Haneti because this was Gogo territory.  Joshua remembered a few Gogo words and that made the people laugh and laugh.  To hear a white person speak Swahili is often a surprise to them.  To hear a white child do the same is a big surprise.  But to hear us say something in Gogo, that was too much for many of them.
Chibwa was the name for a little dog in one of the books (Jungle Doctor On the Hop, I think.) 

Off on the trail to find our dog

On my previous post I mentioned a little female puppy that we kept from being mishandled after church the very day after arriving.  Well, she is ours now. 
We just kept thinking about her over and over.  We started praying that if God wanted us to have her, He would make it happen.  We also asked Him to close the door if we were not to have her.
Getting her was an all day ordeal! 

The little herds-boy that had her didn't speak English, or Swahili.  We didn't see him again either.  We were told that he lived a long way away from the church.  Two Thursdays after seeing her, Emanuel (Elizabeth's husband) and two church members started off with us in Emanuel's car to find "our dog."  We had been asked if we couldn't get a different dog instead.  We were told that she was so small and thin.  There were many other dogs that would be better for us.  We told them, we really wanted this dog if possible.  We also said that if we couldn't get her, we would be willing to look at a different dog.

We set off.  On the way to the church, we saw the boy's older brother and two puppies.  They asked if either of them was the puppy.  Neither was our Chibwa.  We had only seen her once and didn't really remember too much of how she looked, but we knew those were not her.  The boy said the puppy was still at home for the day.  We drove to a hut close to a trail.  I had no idea we were getting ready to take a LONG hike on the hot dusty trails.  That is exactly what we did.  We walked and walked through the long dry trails. 

Another home on our walk to find Chibwa

We were told, "This is the place," as we came upon an area that was stacked high with a thorn-bush fence.  The people don't have normal fences.  They take cut thorn bushes and stack it high and around the area and use that as corrals.  In the middle of the thorn-bush-corral was a stick structure.  I asked if this was for animals or people.  You could see all the way through the building.  As we approached, I was told it was for people.
"Look.  You can see the beds."

Chibwa's old home

 Sure enough.  This was a home!  Wow.  This is where those boys and their parents live?  They live in the middle of a corral of animals like this.  There isn't any water nearby. 

There are beds in there. 

The dog and the boy weren't there.  The mother was there, but she was hiding under a cloth and said she was sick.  Later I was told that she was just afraid when she heard us coming and though maybe we were the government coming to take her or someone away.  (The last day of testing, the man brought his wife to the health testing.  God has a reason for all of our adventures!)

The lady hiding under a cloth.

She told us that we had to go through her husband.  We walked away and back to the road. 

off again

We went a different path and came to another set of mud huts.  There we talked with some very friendly people with a nice big boy puppy.  He "gave" us this dog. 

If we understood everything, the man with our puppy wanted this dog, but the owner wouldn't give it to him.  He said we could have him and if we wanted to trade the man for our dog, he was okay with that. 

The trade-in puppy

 Joshua and I were just hoping that we would end up with the right puppy.  Trying to explain what she looked like or what she didn't look like was challenging.

Many phone calls were made to the man on his cell phone.  He was excited about getting his longed for dog.  He was on his way.  Well, "on his way" can mean a long way off sometimes.  After waiting for maybe an hour or so, we had to leave.  Our meetings were to start in 30 minutes and we hadn't had lunch yet. 

Home decor African style while we wait

We had started this adventure at 11 am.  It was now 1:30 pm.
I was told that they would work it all out.
We had been searching for something to kill fleas.  She was covered with them when we first saw her.  We had spent time going around town looking for something.  God finally sent us to the right person who had bought some sevin dust.  She took Joshua to a place to get some.  We had it before we even knew if we would get the dog!
During our health testing time, we kept getting calls from the man.  We were busy and not able to communicate well with him. Then he was at the site, but no dog.  We tried to get him in contact with our contacts who had the other puppy.  Finally they must have gotten together.
At the very end of our health teaching time, I saw the car pull up and Emanuel and another of the guys that were searching for the dog got out.  I finished my session, and Joshua asked if he could go find the news.  I gave him permission.
He came running back saying "It's her!  It's her!  Do you want to come see her."
I ran with him and sure enough.  There she was.  And she was ours.

We just got her.  "It's her! It's her!"

The first thing I did was dust her down well to get rid of the fleas!  Then we took her back to the hostel.  WE WERE SO EXCITED!

First night with us.

The man that had the bigger puppy said they feed their dogs, but the owner of our dog didn't feed theirs.  She was a skinny thing.

Going for a walk our first full day together.

She didn't quite know what to think about drinking water out of a bowl or eating out of a bowl for that matter.  She wouldn't touch bread, rice, peanut butter or many other things we offered her.  She liked Ugali, and was always searching for some chicken poop to eat.
She did eat some avocado.
Last night I found out she likes fruit!  I wouldn't have guessed that!
She has been with us almost constantly since we got her Thursday.

Don't forget me!

When I was finishing packing Sunday morning, she climbed up on one of the bags.  That was a first.  I guess she knew something was going on, and she didn't want to be left behind.
Taking her on the bus trip from Dodoma to Iringa was interesting.  She actually did very well.  She didn't have any accidents.  People have very different attitudes towards dogs here than in the United States.  I was so thankful that the hotel didn't give us any challenges also!

We hope she likes her new home we are taking her to today!
Chibwa (pronounced chee-bwa.)

She has adjusted to hotel life quite well.