Little House In The Woods, Part II: Bana Wane

My behavior brings laughter, curiosity, and entertainment for everyone in my village no matter what I do, so I long ago went above and beyond the default role of “weird white woman” and found myself in the territory of “weird white woman who keeps asking the names of all the dogs in the village.” In the past two months, I’ve carried kittens on minibuses, toted a puppy on my back, given human names to chickens, and publicly referred to all of these creatures as bana wane – my children – in only partially a joking way. And people around here clearly understand my priorities: I still don’t have comfortable chairs, shelves, or other basic furniture in my house, but they made sure my chicken coop was finished weeks ago. And I’m so glad for that.

So, meet my babies.

This is Elsa: fragile and bird-like in stature, but independent, fearless, and named for the brave little lioness that Joy Adamson raised in Born Free, the book/movie that explains so much about why I am the way that I am. She is always the first at the food bowl, the first to investigate new things, and the first to find my lap when I sit on the porch to drink coffee in the morning. She is also sitting on my shoulder as I write this. Secretly, she’s my favorite.

This is Annie: sleek, beautiful, fun to watch, but with serious prey drive and way more erratic behavior than her sister. She lost bed sleeping privileges within the first week for using my mosquito net as a jungle gym, but she is also the sole reason my home has stayed cockroach-free.

 

I also have two young hens of indeterminate African breeding that will (if all goes well) start laying eggs by February or March. Chicken ownership has already been the realization of a dream, for sure, but training has been a learning process – within an hour of their arrival, both hens had already waltzed into my house and decided to roost on my bed, for example. Boundaries have since been established. Mostly I just have to chase them out of the kitchen now.

This is Aretha Franklin: diva extraordinaire, with attitude in great excess. I shoo her off the porch and hurl cuss words her way at least three times a day.

 

Meet Diana Ross: undoubtedly the more placid, easily handled, and frequently bullied of the two, but also the more clever one. Serious velociraptor vibes when she’s stalking insects. Look at that face; it’s like something out of the Cretaceous.

 

And then there’s Chalo, who is possibly the greatest tool of cultural integration I’ve ever had, the best icebreaker for encouraging shy students to talk to me, and the biggest reason for my recent exponential rise in happiness. His name means “land” or “country” or “earth” in Chitumbuka and “let’s go” in Hindi, which seemed like a nice linguistic coincidence in a place where Indian immigrants and Malawians work alongside each other. And, call me biased, but this little dude is smart – wildly easy to train, even with verbal praise as the sole reward. At only seven weeks old, he already has a solid grasp on “sit” and “come” and gets the basic idea of “down” and “shake,” but he only responds to Chitumbuka commands, and only when spoken in an American accent. Example: picture a few dozen of my students whistling and yelling, “Chalo! Za kuno!” simultaneously, while he looks at them with only vague interest. Picture me softly saying the same command from thirty feet away, with Chalo immediately spinning on his heels and running full-speed in my direction. I can’t decide if this is problematic or awesome.

 

Because this is my first experience raising a puppy on my own, as an adult (…whoa), I was fretting for weeks before I even brought him home. What if he doesn’t learn bite inhibition because I’m taking him away from his mother too soon? Should I teach him commands in Chitumbuka or English? How do I housetrain without a crate? How do I socialize him without puppy kindergarten or dog parks? What do you feed a dog in a country where dog food is only sold in cities? And most of all, what will happen when my service ends in two years?*

But really, I shouldn’t have worried. In lieu of rawhide, he gets potatoes and toilet paper rolls to gnaw on. He has a collar made of spare cloth, a bed of cardboard and blankets, and a diet of usipa (small dried anchovy-like fish) and porridge. After a couple horrifically sleepless nights, I made a makeshift crate out of a chair, a cardboard box, one of the wheels from my bicycle, a bungee cord, my Peace Corps medical kit, and, of course, the all-purpose garment known as a chitenje. (…101 uses, yo). My neighbor/best Malawian friend recently bought Chalo’s littermate, so we have daily puppy play dates that ease my worries about socialization. And I take him everywhere – to the market, to friends’ houses, to nearby villages, and to school if I’m not teaching – to give him a chance to meet lots of people and see lots of things. And now I can’t go anywhere alone without being asked, in tones that vary between worry and amusement, “Where is Chalo? Where is your child?”

So, it’s really little surprise that my reputation as an eccentric animal lover/wannabe farmer is growing by the day, but my collection is now final. Someone offered to sell me a cow the other day, and I politely declined. Applications to my zoo are no longer being accepted. (The sole possible exception: honeybees. We’ll see…)

Stay tuned for the next things bouncing around in my brain, which include: flowers, a vegetable garden, bucket wine, cheese-making, and mango jam.

*This is the question that almost kept me from getting any animals at all, but thankfully there are two very good answers on the table. If I’m still in a position to have a dog in two years (and if I feel like he would make the adjustment easily), it’s possible I’ll bring Chalo back to the States. If not, I have animal-loving Malawian friends who are already a daily part of his life, who already adore him, and would gladly welcome him into their homes permanently.

Pardon the culturally inappropriate flashing of thigh.

Lloyd mean-mugging with kittens and cake dough.

My masterpiece: a dog kennel crafted from locally available, sustainable resources.

This is what my life looks like now, except usually the dog is eating the chickens' food, the cats are sleeping in the chicken coop, and the chickens are in the dog's bed.