Guest Post from James

The morning after our first night in Addis we were waiting for breakfast in the common room. As people trickled down from their bedrooms, everyone had the same comment. What was going on with those dogs last night???

James must be the curious one in the group because he was the only one who had gotten out of bed to watch the show. Here is his interpretation of our first night in Addis. Enjoy!

The trio, a tenor, a deep chested alto and a thin soprano, began their performance at 2 AM sharp. It was a dimly lit intersection but sufficient for a good view in any direction. A few pedestrians and some lone vehicle were the only passersby, but clearly the trio were not performing to please the crowd anyway…at least, not that crowd.

The alto was the unquestioned leader in the group. With a very relaxed demeanor, he took the stage first, a small triangular island in the center of the intersection. He confidently scanned the horizon for any would-be critics, took a deep breath, and with the penetrating force of a train horn in an opera house, he belted out the show-starting “WOO WOO WOO WOOF” as proudly as any hound ever could. But, he was a capital city mut, as were his companions, and Addis is their town.

Well, with an opening as grand as that, no one else could help themselves. The tenor in the group caught the last note of the opening so smoothly it sounded as if one continuous voice had just changed songs without ever taking a breath. When the soprano caught the rhythm he punctuated it so well that every self-respecting mutt within earshot, and that’s a long, long shot, had to contribute.

An entire square mile of city turned into the sort of echoing roar you would have at a super bowl or a world cup or a very, very large unsupervised dog pound. It seemed nothing could stop the celebration of how absolutely wonderful it is to bark at the top of your lungs against the glorious acoustic and visual backdrop of a thunderstorm that had just passed into the shallow mountain valley that already serves such an occasion so well. Nothing, that is, except two official looking men with large, matching sticks approaching the stage at a quickly metered step.

The group, obviously familiar with these critics, retreated backstage with a quick, but not panicked, stride. In the same time it took for the critics to disappear down the ally the group seemed to have taken, the alto’s head popped out from the bushes just behind the stage, carefully scanned the horizon, and then victoriously returned to front and center. As the others took their places, he took in a deep draw of the cool night air, paused for effect, and with a self-satisfied tilt of his nose to the sky, he belted out again what the masses had apparently been anxiously waiting for—for at least a full minute. This time, before the first measure could even be finished, the raucous cheer consumed the entire valley. On and on the celebration continued into the night, with no further interruption. 

Except to our sleep.