Duct Taped Dog

With all of my attention going towards the GMAT, I failed to let everyone know about Kua. Two weeks ago, when I was away from site taking advantage of electricity, Kua was caught in a grasscutter trap!! Imagine the steal jaw style trap used for bears or wolves but far far smaller.

I suppose that Kua was running when it happened because her toes were caught in the trap rather than her ankle. Dorothy, Emmanuel and the rest of the family suspected that something was wrong when Kua wasn't growling for her dinner at 7pm. After a restless nights sleep, the family went looking through the bush until they found Kua still stuck in the trap. When I got home later in the day, I was greeting by the hobbling Kua. It looked like she had a dog style latex glove blown up to capacity in place of her paw. It looked awful!!!

Since then, the family and I have been treating the would whenever we can get close enough. It is slowly getting better but since Kua continually licks the wound in order to keep it clean, the wound won't close. Yesterday and today, I had to get creative and put a band-aid over the cut and wrap duct tape around her paw. It seems to be working. She was running around and keeping her paw clean yesterday and wasn't able to remove the makeshift dressing until the evening. She's as happy as ever but I just want to make sure she gets better!!

On an entirely different and no less important note, I spent most of Tuesday showing two Congressional Staffers around Koforidua and my site. Talk about a change of pace, I went from taking the GMAT on Monday to taking a private car with two members of the Committee on Foreign Relations on Tuesday to selling groundnuts and gari at a tiny shop in Bormase while Dorothy was away at market. I love my life!!

Tuesday was a great day. I woke up and couldn't help chuckling to myself every time I thought about the GMAT. It feels as though I've pulled a fast one on everyone. It's as though I zoned out and came away with a much more competitive applicant profile. No complaints from me, especially because I NEVER have to take that test again! And I digress. At 10, I was driven to the US Embassy where I waited to meet Steve and Laura. The three of us got lunch from the cafeteria (a much bigger highlight for me than for either of them I'm sure) and got in the car where we joined Emmanuel, a Ghanaian health worker. We chatted about Peace Corps and possible plans for the future. It was very informal and comfortable conversation. We went to visit a school in Koforidua before getting to Bormase at around 4pm. We went to the borehole, saw Patrick as he made beads and talked about life in the village. As always, I loved looking at the faces of my visitors. Even Emmanuel was shocked by my living conditions. I'm used to it but still love to be reminded that it's far from normal. At the end of the visit, I felt as though my guests were rushed and I failed to show them my Moringa farm. I've taken pictures to post to the blog but as usual, something is wrong and I can't upload anything. What looked like as sparse field of sticks only a month ago is a dense, lush farm today. I love it!!

Love to all
Ira