My biggest struggle

If asked, what is your greatest struggle here, the obvious answer would be adapting to the culture. My answer would be dealing with all the dogs.  With culture, you can take something that drives you insane, and classify it as a cultural difference, learn from it, and move on.  But how can you stand there, watching a twelve week old puppy frantically chasing its rotten, infected tail, screaming its head off in pain, and just classify that as a cultural difference, learn from it, and move on.  You can't. I can't anyway.  The strays here are of epic proportions. They are everywhere. Some strays become less of strays by taking over a space such as the school.  Some of those dogs become well fed, by establishing territory and bullying lesser dogs out of food.  Survival. I get that. 

We have about ten dogs around the school, two of which are definitely alpha and the rest scavenge the empty classrooms looking for food left behind by students.  One old man has some terrible skin condition and a sunken eye, most of them are missing hair all over from what I can only assume due to scratching. It's Tuesday, and so far this week, on my three-four block walk to school, I have discovered one pregnant dog, one nursing dog, and one bitch getting nailed in the middle of the street. Those are dogs that passed in front of me on the street. I'm sure there are 20 more where each one of them came from.  And then there is the little puppy with the rotten tail. And when you console him, he looks up at you, begging for you to help him. Even he knows that humans are supposed to help dogs.  He instantly quiets down, until the pain becomes intolerable, and then he frantically starts again, unable to stop. So, I balled my eyes out. Literally, right there. The tears could not be stopped.  And when I was done, I got up, wiped off my eyes, and decided to find a vet. I would pay to have his tail amputated and I would make sure he got antibiotics.  Crazy, yes.  I'm three weeks in and already prepared to start saving every Soi Dog that comes along. But I didn't care. So I asked if there was a vet in town, and it took some time, but eventually the English teacher understood. She had to ask someone because she didn't know of one. That woman just laughed. And then they both spoke in Thai for a few minutes and walked away, never giving me an answer. No, they were not going off to ask someone else, they were ignoring me because in Thai culture you don't give people difficult answers, you just leave them hang until they figure it out.  So I left.  I wasn't needed at school anyway, and yes, I was supposed to stay, but I couldn't. I couldn't listen to the puppy downstairs, barking and chasing its tail, as it had been all morning.

I've come a long way in the last two weeks, adapting to the culture. Even in the last 48 hours I felt like I had made significant progress. And then this puppy came along. And now I am right back where I started.