2 Ladies, Come & Gone

[caption id="attachment_498" align="aligncenter" width="553" caption="My two besties"][/caption]

Tropical cyclone Emily:  We've been busy preparing for her for the past 2 days... Purchased electricity, check. Filled up all our water bottles and pitchers with water, check.  2 extra gallons of water from the grocery store, check.  Washed all the dishes in the sink (the water cuts off when it rains for long periods of time, so if you forget to do those dishes... yuck!), check.  Non perishable food in case we really get in trouble, check.  Luckily, Emily has now passed us and all we've seen of her is a little wind and lots of rain.  We did wake up this morning with no water though, so I am glad we have lots of extra on hand, because I am using it already!

This week Charlie and I were also lucky enough to have a sweet little puppy for a few day, until we found her a permanent home. We aren't allowed to have pets in our current apartment, and our landlord tends crops in the garden behind our apartment, so she's around way too much to sneak anything past her.  We found our pup a home for good last night, with some loving students, but I'm not going to lie, Charlie and I both definitely cried a little when we had to give her up!  She was the sweetest little puppy, and we loved her!  We're not sure what kind she was -- but she looked like a mixture of an island dog with a Rottweiler or Doberman Pinscher.  She had the sweetest little personality!

And now, the humorous story of how acquiring the puppy went down.
Last week when I went to Portsmouth to tutor, I spotted her as I was walking down the street.  She was cowering and crawling out from under a shack.  She approached me timidly, crouched down in fear, but she covered my face in kisses the minute I scooped her up.  I held her for a little while and then put her back on the ground, and she stayed near me, although she was also interested in scouring a nearby trash pile for something to eat.  A group of local women passed me and told me, "Take her!  She need a home.  This is not a life!"  I told them that I'd love to take her, but that I didn't want to take someone's dog.  They replied, "She live on the street, she need a home!"

Done.  I knew right then that I couldn't leave such a sweet little lady on the street!

I carried her down the street to CALLS, where we played with some of the kids in daycare while I waited to meet James for tutoring.  She loved me, she loved the children, she loved to play.  After CALLS, we walked to Best Buy (the hilarious Caribbean junk shop, not the awesome techy Best Buy of the U.S.) so I could buy her a collar.  I walked in holding the puppy, and a woman inside smirked.

"Where you find dat po-ppy?"

"I found her in the street in a trash pile."

"That Alvin's po-ppy!"

{Oh sh*t.}

"Hey, you see dat po-ppy?  That Alvin's po-ppy!"

"Yeah, dat Alvin's po-ppy."

{Double sh*t!}

"Oh, then I'm going to put her back. I don't want to steal someone's dog.  A group of ladies told me she was a stray, that's why I was taking her."

"Alvin don't care for her.  She live on da street.  It don't even look like he feed her.  She need a home.  Take her!"

"Well I don't want to steal someone's dog..."

"Take her! Take her, people don't know how to treat dogs round here."

So I leave the store, worried that some man named Alvin is not going to be happy with me.  I walk back to the spot where I found her, deciding if I should leave her or not.  I turn around and see that one of the women from Best Buy has followed me.  She sees me and laughs.

"Don't put her back.  She need you.  My store is right here.  If you can't keep her, you bring her back to me and I will find her a home, but take her.  Go, go."

So... I hopped on a transport {bus} and took Little Lady on her first bus ride.  I. Stole. A. Puppy.

Don't tell Alvin!

{Coming soon: how we cared for Little Lady, found her a home, and as a result, a security guard was paid $200 EC...}