A Goat Called Maybe

Last night I came home to discover the newest addition to my household, a brand new little baby goat! I was thrilled and instantly started talking to the kids of the family asking what we should name it...to which Paciente responded, "Maybe." Of course, this response was probably due to her misunderstanding my question and trying incorrectly to say the English word for "baby," but the name still has an ominous ring to it as the only reason to own a goat in this country is to eat it. This quickly snapped me back to reality. Or my current reality (as I guess I should call it) and in this reality, goats are for eating, not for adoring and it's totally weird that I was distressed by the fact that Maybe would be spending their first night away from their mother outside, alone, and bleating loudly close to my bedroom window. In Rwanda, there is absolutely no such thing as animal rights as we know it in the states. People don't really own pets so much as they own meat and produce animals. Even those animals are treated dramatically differently from pets at home. A cow is the ultimate symbol of status, but is typically kept in a pen just large enough to turn around in and standing in its own waste. So two nights ago, when I pulled out pictures of my life at home, it was hilarious to my family to see multiple pictures of dogs, most of which were wearing some form of clothing and even funnier to them when I explained that my dog sleeps on my bed with me.

The Rwandan perspective on pets makes perfect sense. It's fairly impractical to have pets here, especially when they're not actually turning the profit. Dogs in particular are taboo because they are said to have scavenged the bodies of the dead post-1994. It just brings to light another area in which I am different here. In my life, animals have largely been a luxury, rather than a necessity, which makes me stand out when I look at animals because I find them cute and everyone else only looks at them when they're thinking about their next meal. Not that I plan on changing anything, my hippie-buddhist ideals and a strong belief that all sentient beings are equal is not really something that I can see ever going away. However, I am going to have to accept that it will be a long, uphill battle to explain the reasons I have decided to have a dog at my site without being culturally insensitive.

Until next time!
Catie