Dogs

Dogs are very interesting here. If a dog bites someone in America they are put down. If I dog bites someone here, the person is laughed at because they let a mutt bite them. But at least in the day time, dogs are scared of people. It's perfectly acceptable to kick dogs or throw rocks at them. In fact, if a dog is picking on you, you just crouch low to the ground and they run away because they think you're going to throw rocks at them. I saw this in practice and it's crazy how well it works.

Of course, with this abuse comes an odd compromise. There's a dog that lives outside one of the Peace Corps volunteer's house. This dog has realized that gringos don't usually kick her for no reason. In fact, they actually pet her and give her left over food occasionally. She followed us all the way down a mountain yesterday. When we got to the bottom, we had to use a rickshaw to get to the beach. The poor thing happily ran after us for a long way, at least a mile, before it finally gave up.

We rode a bus back up the mountain and found the dog waiting for us back at the house. Seriously? This is the most loyal dog in the world. I think they gave it a treat, but the very act of not-beating it was enough.