The Dog Made Me Do It* (Part I)

Despite several signs that I should not have a dog (one of them being Biblical in nature) last week, I heard that one of my landlord’s 6 sons had brought me a dog from the jungle. I steeled myself to say “Thanks, really, but hell no”. That is, until I actually saw her. And then, I was even less poised to say no after she nuzzled up to me and made those little grunting sounds that I used to think that only the Nina made, but which I have, in the last year, learned that baby pigs make, too. Thusly, I had to make the walk of shame back to my vet with the new puppy, who of course said to me (with a smile, but kind of ruefully), “Ooooh... another... puppy”. I am sure he is thinking “Let’s hope that this one lasts a little longer under your care”. (And he doesn’t even know about the puppy carried away by floods before I could take possession of her, or the other one that I watched get hit by a car, just as I was merely thinking of getting her off the street and bringing her home.) We commence with the shots and the de-worming. I carry her over to the scale. I know the routine by now.

In the meantime, I get word from a sick loved one who was planning to come to Ecuador for medical treatment, for a disease that has no real treatment in the States, but that here, is treated fairly non-chalantly with an experimental treatment, and with good results, from what I can discern. This loved one, who I will just call “Theo”, cannot make the trip down to Ecuador. I talk to the doctor who was going to do the treatment, and he says that in such cases, he sends the medicine to the patient. I consider this, and relay the news to said loved one.

I get home from this visit with the doctor and what did I see:

Yes, she weighs about 10 pounds and somehow dragged my suitcase out from under my bed. She sat on it (cutely, of course) in case I didn’t get the hint. I open the suitcase and start packing it, half out of habit and the other half out of hope.

While this is all going on, a friend of Theo’s named Angela calls me to offer her frequent flyer miles to send me to the States with the medicine. I love this woman. I agree, of course, and set our plans in forward motion.

Now, if I can just get my travel documents in order before my flight leaves....

This turns out to be a larger project than expected, but so is almost everything here, and so, after some initial screaming at the government officials, and then some crying (over the course of 4 trips to the capital to the immigration visa offices) they grant me the visa transfer I need, and I am internationally-able. I then go to local immigration services, to get my national ID card renewed (which I could not do until the visa transfer was completed). These guys all look about 12, and being drunk with power makes them appear even moreso like kids playing dress up in their uniforms with guns and big-man attitudes. I doubt that any of them even have to shave.

These guys have caused me problems before, and even once stole my lucky $2 bill, but since I usually need their services to be able to stay in the country, I grin and bear it and then complain about it later. This time is no different. They makes jokes about having my cell phone number and knowing where I live. Ha. Ha. They ask to see my old national ID card, and the corresponding stamp in my old passport (which I happen to have with me, just having come from Immigration in Quito). They proceed to keep it, and when I realize what they have done (later, of course), I go back to get my old passport (with 10 years of visas and entry and exit stamps) and they say that noooo, we would never ask you for that, we only need your current passport, and anyway, if we were to have your passport, it would be right here in your file with all of your other personal information, and yet, look, it is not here. I give them my best you-are-useless-sacks-of-shit look, and tell them that no, I am absolutely sure that I handed it to them, and that they never gave it back to me, and that it must be there somewhere, maybe in a drawer or something. My idea is to give them an out, so they don’t have to admit to having stolen it. They pretend to look for it, and then repeat the same condescending litany of BS about not needing my old passport, and that they wouldn´t have asked me for it to begin with. I tell them that surely they are mistaken and that they should notify me when it turns up. They patronizingly tell me, “Of course, señorita” (knowing full well that I no longer qualify for this moniker, since all Ecuadorian paperwork and identification documents your civil status, including divorce, which I have always thought was highly invasive, but so are a lot of things here.) In turn, I address the Grand Puba of this gaggle of assholes in the vos form in Spanish, just to remind him again that I don´t give a shit who he is, and that I want my f*$&ing passport back, and they all sit there shocked as I walk out of the office and out onto the street.**

Then comes the final doctor consult in Riobamba and the handing over of the meds (after my 27 other phone calls and meetings with him, which I am sure he is getting annoyed with by now). The puppy, at this point, has a name: Sisa Mati (the first of which means “flower” in Quichua, the second name, being there just in case, and for entirely superstitious reasons). I had wanted to name her just Mati, but I got the same “God, you are a dumb gringa, don´t you know that´s a masculine name?” look from every person I said it to...

The trip to Riobamba and then Quito was beautiful, and Dr. Chávez, acting on behalf of one Dr. Bond (yes, James is in fact his first name), bequeaths me three clear glass bottles filled with the components of this formula, and gives me a list of things to buy in the pharmacy that is attached to his clinic. His instructions are fairly detailed, and he humors my questions about mixing them into the IV bags and administering the formula, and all of that. (This is all fairly run-of-the-mill in Ecuador, it seems.) Then, we get the paperwork ready for my bringing these meds over international borders. Of course, the documents have to say that the treatment is mine, and not for Theo. The good doctor decides that, for the purposes of my trip, I will have Lupus. He writes up the certificate, saying as much, and somewhere in the middle of the Quito airport, I realize that I know close to nothing about Lupus, should anyone ask. What I do know is that Lupus is not as uncommon as it would seem, and that, with my stellar traveling luck, the customs official will likely have a sister or cousin with the disease. The only other thing that I know about Lupus is that doctors seem to know only slightly more about it than I do, and so I decide on generalized and intense pain and weakness as my symptoms, and just hope that nobody looks in my checked bags, which are now full of saline IV bags, needles, IV tubing, and three glass vials of clear liquid that could be anything, as far as an even minimally-conscientious customs official is concerned. Considering that one of my more recent flights to the States involved being pulled out of the gate area by Interpol and having my boarding pass confiscated until they could discern that a certain bag in the cargo area was not mine, I am anticipating some variety of problems. ***

However, St. Christopher (it is St. Christopher, right?) must’ve been watching over me, since my arrival at U.S. customs was only punctuated by a “Welcome home” and then a wave-through. This.has.never.happened.before.



Meeting me in California was a different saint with a similar name and disposition, along with my father, both uncomfortably crammed into a slick convertible, and with wild hair from the ride to the airport. If Ira Glass were to be scripting a soundtrack to all of this, the song from the opening credits to the O.C. would have been ironically playing in the background, I’m sure.

It seemed that the hardest part of the trip was over, and so we all enjoyed the ride with the top down through Beverly Glen to the house.

I was just glad to not have had to blame the dog for making me pack my bags, and in doing so, condemn her to a life of little-dog imprisonment. They are especially hard on those cases, I hear.



* An appreciation for Magical Realism will help somewhat in reading this. Some names have been changed; others have not.

** At the time, I thought about filing a report so that I could at least document that my old passport was stolen (U.S. passports, even expired ones, sell for top dollar here), but I would have to file the report with... guess who... the people who stole it from me in the first place. Nice touch, that.

*** Of course, the bag in question was not mine, but, judging from the frantic Beagles that accompanied the officials, and the fact that the other 4 people pulled out of line were all women around my age, I assume that this inconvenience had something to do with Plan Colombia, and that there was a good possibility that I would also be having my stomach x-rayed that night, should they feel like it.

Katitawa video

Lots going on/having gone on here and elsewhere. Still not sure to say about it all, so for now, I give you a wonderful video created by one of our volunteers at the school.

Be patient. The video takes a little while to load.


Katitawa school from Justin McIntosh on Vimeo.