A New Addition

Our family hasn't owned a dog since Josiah was a baby. We moved to seminary housing in 2005 and were no longer able to keep our spunky little chihuahua, Amiga. It was sad to have to give her up. (Paul and I got Amiga just a week after we were married.) Thankfully, though, Paul's parents were willing to adopt her, so we still get to see her every time we visit them in Arizona.

For a quite a while now, our kids have been asking to have a pet. We considered getting a guinea pig while we were doing our linguistics training in Dallas, but we figured it would be better just to wait on the pet thing until we came to Tanzania. So, that's what we kept telling our kids: "We'll get a dog in Tanzania."

Now, our kids can stop asking.

Yesterday we adopted Chica, a 9-month old (or so) mixed-breed from an expat who is leaving Tanzania. The dog hasn't had much human contact for the past 5 months (her owners were on furlough and she was being looked after by guards who didn't give her much attention), so she's still fairly shy and scared. We're hoping, though, that she'll come out of her shell more as she gets used to us.

Even this afternoon, she was wagging her tail and playing a little bit with Josiah and Anna and the other children on our compound.

It will be nice to have a pet again.