A destined meeting
Tired, lost, and depressed by the workload of my PhD fieldwork, I wandered with no fixed image of where I want to go in mind. I walked down the street toward the central market of Soc Trang province, a place located in the Mekong Delta of the Southern Vietnam. When I turned left and got past a fish shop, suddenly a woman grabbed my left arm and asked: "Do you want to buy this dog?". My head turned up, looked at her, then at a tiny puppy kept in a steel cage. Lost, scared, and helpless, this cow-like puppy looked back at me with pathetic eyes. I asked the seller without any intention of buying the puppy: "How much?" and she responded: "Five hundred thousand dong" (Vietnamese dollar, equivalent to $22). Still having no intent to buy, I stroke a big bargain: "Three hundred thousand dong". She replied almost immediately: "Done". Then I took the dog in my arms. She, as shy as she was, stayed peacefully within my arms.
On the way to go out of the market, I was still wondering: "What the hell am I doing?" Another me responded: "We saved her from restaurants and dog-meat eaters". And I kept that motivation with a high spirit of having this puppy with me after a silent afternoon.
We got acquainted to each other pretty quickly. The first thing I would do was to buy her some food as she looked starved.
Consumed quickly, she then felt asleep on my sandals.
I gave her an official name: "Mimi". It just fit her cuteness. And everything seemed go well for both of us. I was happy for having a fieldwork partner, who could share with me this lone and stressful journey.But at that time I had not imagined the troubles she would bring about.
And our honeymoon did not last long. At 5 am the day after, I immediately woke up with her jumping and shouting around my bed. She was hungry. Half asleep, I woke up and fed her with the remaining food I bought yesterday's afternoon.
But waking up at 5am having stayed up to 2am last night was not the most terrible part. I then sensed an unpleasant smell. (You guess it right!) Around the corner, she shitted and peed. And it was jut too smelly to come back to bed leaving that around. Removed shit, wiped and brushed the floor for 30 minutes and went back to bed. I could not punish a little girl, could I?
Mimi just would keep shitting around every early morning for nearly two weeks until I moved to another renting house. Imagine cleaning up her shit and urine spots after a tired working day and when you are deeply sleeping? It was just exhausting. At first I was so stressful and thought: "Oh no, I was wrongly buying her" and "I cannot take care of her while I have a lot of things to do". I tried almost every methods shown on YouTube to guide her peeing and shitting. But they were hopeless. Looking after her just like taking care of a newborn baby.
Nonetheless, I cannot stop loving Mimi. She got an appealing look that I could not even think about punish her. She was just so cute and lovely. When I was studying, she slept around my table. Just like this.
And tranquilly slept on a chair nearby.
My love story with her just started like that. By chance and impromptu. Close but struggled; inspirational but depressed. But love is never simple, is it? It is multifaceted and mixed tastes, is it? Our story just keeps going and progressing. She is dependant on me and somehow, I depend on her...