On Friday, as I am lying in my house of pain, M and T leave to go to work. They leave the house chatting to each other and I hear them say goodbye to the guard. Five minutes later, I hear them come back. Then I hear them saying something about a dog to Mifta, and they come in the house. M goes straight to the bathroom, calling behind her, “I need you to look at my butt.” I wonder if I’m delirious,  but then they explain that on the way to work, on the same path where T pushed M in front of a “raging bull” the day before, a dog ran out into the road and bit her in the bum.

T makes the offer to check her out, but suggests I might be a better choice. I dutifully go to the bathroom and look at the wound. Sure enough, the dog broke the skin. I make one crack about this being the logical punishment for her always sticking her ass out, and then I put on some clothes to go to the clinic with her. T goes to the office to tell them what happened.

We’re in the clinic waiting room when T calls. He went to the dog’s house with Tigist, the nurse. He didn’t understand the whole conversation, but he heard a whole lot of the word “ferenge”. As far as he can tell, Tigist told the woman that her dog bit Tigist’s white girl, and the woman has to take care of it. The doctor checks M out and asks some questions. Was it a street dog or someone’s pet? A pet. Was it older than 10? Who knows? Has it had its rabies shot? The owner says yes. M will probably be fine, if the dog is a pet and has had a rabies shot. Buuuuuuut, if it’s an old dog, the rabies shot might not work and M could die of rabies. Thank you, and goodbye!

So then we go to the woman’s house. It’s a nice house, behind a gate like our own, and the woman has two dogs. We slink past them into her house, where she waits for us with her baby. She is so sorry about this, the dog escaped from the yard, yadda yadda. She then pulls out a certificate for the younger dog (the one that bit M is 11 years old, of course) that says it was vaccinated for rabies the week before. She can’t find the one for the biter, but she swears that it was also vaccinated, because she has children and she doesn’t want her dogs to bite her children or their friends! (Only ferenge!)

We go home so M can call her parents. It’s something like 4am in New Hampshire and they are a little confused by the call. M explains that she needs to get the rabies shot, but we don’t know where to get it in Addis. The rabies treatment is one shot in the wound, and then five shots over a number of days and weeks. She says she and T will go out and find the shot, and then she’ll be fine.

Ha. Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa. She and T leave at about noon and are gone forever. I watch Oprah and all kinds of other shows and the news and I read my book and take a nap and they still aren’t home. They roll in at about 7pm. They have been all over the city looking for the shot, and they can’t find it anywhere. They went to a hospital that had the treatment, but they didn’t recommend it for foreigners, who don’t generally like 17 shots to the abdomen. They went to a rabies clinic, where they saw all kinds of pretty pictures of different varieties of dogs, but got no shot. They went to the UN, who said they couldn’t give it to her. They went to the FRIGGING AMERICAN EMBASSY, who told her that they only carry the shot for their employees (but they asked if she was carrying any guns before they let her in, which is a reasonable question given that I’m sure lots of scary terrorists admit to carrying firearms before attacking an embassy). GOD BLESS AMERICA! The only place in Addis to get the shot is the mythical Swedish clinic, which everyone recommended but no one could place on a map.

By the time they get back, they are understandably exhausted and M is a mess. Her parents want her to come home and her doctor in New Hampshire (who never suggested she get a rabies shot in advance) says she should come home for good to get the treatment. Even I am gripped with terror at the thought of her having to leave three months early. The whole situation is awful, and she is completely wrecked.

The next morning at breakfast, Genet tells us about how she was bitten by a dog and she “cry cry cry” during the treatment. I bet, dude. 17 shots?! Then M’s parents call. They managed to locate the Swedish doctor in the middle of the night, and he has the shot.  Thank you, Sweden! First Swedish fish, then Ikea, now the rabies shot! That’s the good news. M calls the doctor and he doesn’t have the first shot to go in the wound. That’s the bad news. M’s parents call her health insurance company and they say they will fly M to Israel or London for treatment. M chooses London. She will leave that night.

We go to the clinic and get her the shot. It is a lovely little clinic in a leafy compound, but we’re all too sad to appreciate the fact that we finally found it. We go to see the kids and tell them what happened. They look at us in horror at the story, and suddenly we realize why all the kids are afraid of dogs (if I was facing 17 shots to the abdomen or certain death if one bit me, I’d be scared as hell too).

We are all sad. M is leaving us. We go back to the house so she can get her stuff, and then we take a interminable ride to the airport. It’s really hard to say goodbye to her when we know we are going to miss her so much. She is the mini-me I never knew, and T’s second wife. She is the best friend we have made in a while, and we love her like a sister. Addis is not the same without her.

So let this be a lesson to you: no matter how good it makes you look in pictures, don’t make it a habit to walk around with your badonkadonk out, or a dog will surely chomp it.