For Owondo, if only he could read.

This will be the longest time I have spent without my dog, Owondo, since the day he was born. Owondo, “Peanut” in the Bulu language of my Peace Corps village, has been a huge part of my life since I picked him out of Papa Billy’s litter and brought him, ridden with disease, into my home in May, 2010. Since that day, our lives have become intertwined in so many ways. I feel unnatural walking without him by my side, I have a classical botany drawing of a peanut plant tattooed up and down my back, and I stopped running entirely when he was hit by a car three years ago and needed months of home care. My life is empty without him, and these next three months I’ll spend in Botswana will be the longest time we’ve been apart.

Owondo isn’t a good dog in the classical sense. He is stubborn as hell, though I like to think that this is what got him through his car accident when he spent God-knows-how-long waiting faithfully outside my friend’s house waiting to be found. He is as strong as any dog twice his size, and likes to reserve his strength primarily for hunting squirrels. He is sometimes very obnoxious to run with because when it’s too hot he slows me down, and he’s always quick to focus on wildlife that tease him in their high up perches. He has been known to find delicious things in the forest during hikes or runs and will come back only when he’s ready, never when I call. But he always finds me on his own time and comes running back to me with his tail wagging excitedly, wishing I could have seen the stashes he raided or the juicy rabbits that just barely evaded him. His tales when he runs off are ones that I will never hear. He will never tell me all he saw, tasted, and did. I will never know the holes he dug his way into, or the trees he leapt into trying, unsuccessfully, to catch tasty morsels of squirrel.

These next three months I will spend running by myself, I will learn to walk in straight, untethered lines, and I will realize shortly that I talk to myself a lot and with no one to listen. I miss him already and I know he anticipated missing me for a longer period than usual. This time I will be the one with tales from a foreign land, and I will only hope that he will be ok with the mystery of the unknown of where I’ve been, the people I’ve met, the many new animals I’ve seen, and his numerous missed hunting opportunities.