So today was kind of a crazy day! Let me explain…
So this morning I went out to the communal gardens in our town to try and chat with the women there, even if just to get names and try to start friendships. I chatted for awhile, and then as I was leaving, a boy who was mending the fence called me over, held out his hand, and asked me if I liked rabbits (the words “like” and “want” are the same word in Mandinka), and I hesitatingly that I did. He had a baby bunny in his hand, and told me to take it home. I asked him where its mother went, and he said that she ran off. He again said that I should carry the rabbit home, I asked why and he said that I should wait until it got big, and then I should eat it. He kept insisting that I should take it, and so in the end I did.
Now, I didn’t want a pet. I had recently decided that getting one would just be too much stress, and would be difficult to leave here at the end of my service, and difficult to take home, and would just make traveling within the country difficult, so I just wasn’t going to get one. Moreover, I’m not going to eat this bunny. But I wouldn’t have faulted someone ELSE for eating it. Really now, I understand why no one wants rabbits in their garden, and I can’t fault someone for eating something edible, and if they had taken this bunny home, raised it, stewed it, and told me about it later, that would have been fine. But there is no way that I can eat it. Ever.
So I got this little bunny home, and this guy is tiny. He reminds me of a lemon, because he is the same size and shape when he is curled up sleeping. You know? A Sunkist lemon that is all uniform in size, shape, and color at the grocery store? That’s the size and shape of my bunny, from his wiggle bunny nose to his bunny tail. I put him in a box with some cabbage and some sorrel, but he wouldn’t eat it. I think he’s too small. I tried to feed him some milk from a spoon, but he wasn’t having that either. I searched the market for a medicine dropper, but found none. In the end, I searched my PC supplied med kit, and found an eye-wash solution that comes in a squirt bottle. I emptied that out and have been bottle-feeding this dumb bunny every few hours or so for the last few days(thank you PC). I hope he just grows into eating green stuff, or else how am I going to teach him to be a bunny?
The kids in my neighborhood love him though. Its been a good experience for them, I think. Pets don’t really happen here, and I think its good for them to see that you don’t have to shoo away any animal who comes near. They are good at being gentle at petting him.
So, I brought this bunny home, and had to figure out how to handle him. THEN, I went to a meeting of my mother’s kafoo. A kafoo is a women’s community group. They have different functions, depending on the group. Sometimes they run a business together, sometimes it’s a forum for resource sharing, sometimes they tend a group garden. At the kafoo meeting, there were about 30 women sitting around, all talking at once. Many were yelling, and it would be easy to think that there was a big argument going on, but there wasn’t. It was just a lot of loud talking and joking. I greeted everyone, and just sat and tried to chat, or just listen to see if I could understand snippets of the many conversations.
A woman came up to me and did the standard greetings. Then the conversation was as follows.
Where is your mother?
-she is there (in the course of greetings, the answer to any question “where is…” is “it is there.”)
Where is your mother’s ass?
It is there?
Hmm…where is your ass?
It is here?(then I shook it)
As it turns out, when she asked about my mother’s ass, I should have said “your ass!” and that these are both insults, but she was just joking with me. Actually, there was a lot of “your ass!” shouting going on at this meeting. Also a lot of “yes, my ass. Here it is, look at it.” happening also. These ladies were very funny. I’m not sure if anything actually came of this meeting, it seemed to be a bunch of chatting, but it was fun to sit in on. I’m going to need to develop some sass if I’m going to hang with these ladies.
Time to go feed the bunny. Enjoy the pics.
Love!
************Addendum**********
Sad story. About two and a half weeks after this was written, my bunny died. I don’t even know why. He was all healthy and active, and eating veggies the day before….then yesterday morning he was all cold on the floor. I’m baffled. I didn’t want a pet, I didn’t look for a pet, but once I had one thrust upon me, I realized that I really liked having a sidekick. He kept me from getting lonely.
This sucks.
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