When I got Patsy, I got Frits, a smallish bastard terrier of great charm, energy, and obedience. Some of you knew him before he died seven years ago. This is his story.
During the last phases of my assignment in Yaoundé, I had to make a trip to Singapore, combined with a holiday in Bali. Patsy was back at Vaucluse with Frits, and at the time she had nobody to care for him in her absence. (Our house guardian had seven cats). However her sister, Sytje, -----who died at 93 this year----agreed to take him. So Patsy drove him down to the Costa Brava, where Sytje lived, left him off, and joined me in Zurich, to fly together to Singapore.
When we returned, Patsy to Vaucluse and me to work, the happy memories of our holiday were suddenly tarnished. Frits had disappeared!
Patsy called me, in tears, to tell me that her sister had lost the dog, or rather that Frits had lost her. Coming back from a Sunday stroll, Sytje suddenly realized that Frits was no longer with her. Patsy immediately hopped in the car, drove frantically to Spain where the two sisters, with the help of the Guardia Civil, the local SPA, and even the media, looked for him in vain. When Patsy phoned me for the bad news, we agreed to get another dog right away—the classic remedy for canine loss. So she chose Max, a handsome two-year old of mixed breed, partly Labrador, and brought him out to Yaoundé to be with me for my last months of work there. He rapidly acclimated to tropical life, bounding all over the golf course and digging for all and sundry underground animals, of which Africa has some strange ones.
The months went by with no sign of Frits. We had almost, but not quite, given up hope, and we stopped phoning Styje.
Patsy had never seen the North of the country, an absolutely fabulous region with geological formations similar to those stone pillars that you see in American westerns, peopled by a race of herders and hunters, the Hausas. These tribes are strong, self-sufficient, and contemptuous of the corrupt Southerners. The first President of independent Cameroon was from there, and ran an honest government until assassinated. Another story.
Anyway, we flew to Maroua, the capital of the North, and did some sight-seeing. We had a very nice young guide who fortunately spoke French, He took us to a small village where a famous seer lived, a sorcerer who divined the future by the magic manipulations of land crabs. I had no interest in what seemed to me a tourist gimmick, but Patsy thought it would be pleasing to our guide if we went along for a séance or two.
We were led down a steep hill to a small hamlet where goats and chickens were running loose. The sorcerer greeted us in a very courtly way, and sitting in front of a large jar which was filled with mud, volunteered to answer any questions we might have. Patsy’s first question was; “Is Frits alive?” The seer picked up a crab and put it in the jar, among small sticks, closed the jars and spoke some unintelligible, over and over again. Then he took off the cover of the jar and looked at the position of the crab. His answer was “Yes, your dog is alive and has enough food “. Skeptical, but encouraged, Patsy’s next question was “Where is he?”
Same routine with crab, the sticks and the strange cantations. Answer:
“He is between 25 to 30 kilometers from where he disappeared “. Patsy insisted; “What direction? “ Answer;” Turning left to the North “.
This was the end of the séance, as the sorcerer appeared tired, so we left him a fee via the guide and, not believing a word, but fascinated by the experience, went back to Yaoundé.
Patsy went home, and I stayed on for a few more weeks to wrap up my contract.
One day I got a call from Patsy announcing the great news. Frits had been found and, thanks to a lot of SPA detective work, returned to Sytje. Patsy raced to Spain, greeted, but was not immediately recognized, by Frits. He had spent six months on a terrace in Gerona with several cats, and looked like Raggedy Ann. A woman had simply picked him up while Sytje was walking him, thinking he was a stray, and then six months later, decided that she had enough of a dog, and turned him in to the local SPA.
Una Loca !
I won’t go into the rehabilitation of Frits, (who was already responding to Catalan ) , but end the story with its extraordinary revelation. The woman’s place in Gerona was exactly 24 kilometers from Sytje’s house, and you turn left to go there. Unbelievable but true; the crab sorcerer had been spot on!
More African, and other adventures, to come.
Labels: Tener Eckelberry
