Oh Turtle.

Okay, this is really sad, and I'm going to talk about it briefly and generally. I mentioned my sick dog once before- and I've avoided mentioning her since, because I kind of knew what was going to have to happen. She got sicker and sicker, and yesterday, finally, I had her put down. This is the extremely abbreviated version- there was much more agonizing involved, emergency texts to my mother to PLEASE CALL ME I NEED DOG ADVICE and hours of impossible conversations in a culture where humane treatment of animals is a luxury at best and the vet's main job is to inspect animals for slaughter. So this has been the hardest part of my service so far, having to make ethical pet decisions (which is a new responsibility for me) in a remote village in Burkina Faso. And about a dog that someone else loved for years before I inherited her, and to whom I felt accountable. But Turtle was a very good dog, and I'm glad I had her, even though it's been rough and I've sort of jumped ahead in cultural adjustment to the stage where the novelty has worn off and I already hit that point of "why can't things just be EASY, everything's so DIFFICULT here."
So that's the end of my dog story. And I still have my fabulous cat Jack who eats lizards and meows like a goat and loves to sleep on my lap.