As we follow Becky, she points out various areas of the animal shelter. It’s rugged, like they furnished this place with junk they found at the local dump. One of the marked off places for the dogs to play uses a little bit of everything to create a fence: a chipped sheet of wood here, a bit of old roof there, and what looks like a broken surfboard is acting as a gate. Old tyres seem to be used for creating doggy obstacle courses. What there is of grass, is clumpy and scruffy. I wonder if the dogs care, or are they just so glad to be out of their kennels that they don’t mind?
“So what do you think?” Becky finally asks me.
I hesitate; knowing that if I’m rude Mama will end me. “It’s not what I expected.” Which is true, in a way. I had no idea where I was going, so what could I expect?
Becky grins. “Ja, this place embraces the ‘recycled look’. But our funds are limited and we refuse to diminish the care we give to our animals or cut back on our various outreach programs.”
I nod, liking this term. “Recycled look.” I’m going to work that into one of my comics. I pull out my phone and make a note.
“Not the time,” my mother says.
“Sorry,” I say, and quickly put my phone back into the pocket of my boyfriend jeans. The only fashionable jeans in the girl’s department that are not too tight in the crotch. I mean, I’ve got the legs for skinny jeans, but they don’t love me back. Besides, boyfriend jeans have better pockets.
“So,” Becky says, clapping her hands together. “Let’s see … Lizeka should be over here and, oh, yes…” She waves to a woman wearing a white coat, who is emerging from a small brick building.
Becky turns back to us. “Lizeka is not only the person who runs the youth programme; she’s also our vet.”
“Molweni,” Lizeka says, as she joins our group.
“Molo, sisi,” my mother says. “Unjani?”
The two women begin to chat like lost friends. I learn that the Youth Trainer programme runs Saturday mornings and each participant is paired with a dog and taught how to train it. “Our hope,” Mama Lizeka says, “is that the children will start coming every day the shelter is open and take responsibility for the dog until it is ready to find the animal a forever-home.”
I blink, without saying a word, but Mama Lizeka just smiles and says, “Why don’t we meet a few of the dogs and see if we can find a match?”
I take a deep breath, ready to inform her that there has been a terrible mistake, when my mother is whispering in my ears, “What would Zimbali Jadeite do?”
***
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