Charles the Brown

I have a love/hate relationship with this dog of my upstairs neighbors. He is occasionally sweet, but mostly he jumps up on my clothes with dirty paws and chews clothespins that drop on the ground (of which there are precious few to start with) and lurks at our door, trying to dash in when we open it and does his business on our carpet (he's grown out of this now, it seems) and chews favorite shoes and terrorizes our local friends when they come to visit and barks or whines when he is tied up or left out of important house meetings. The more attention we give him, the worse he seems to act!
 

Perhaps it's a training issue, but he's not only not my dog, he lives in a mini-community. It must be hard for him to figure out who his consistent authority is. Let's just say that it would take more—or less—than a village to raise this dog.
 

Ugh.
 

When someone asked me recently what my biggest challenge living here has been, I thought about dangerous situations and interpersonal issues and learning the language and meeting the people, then honestly answered, "the dog." (Or probably something more psychologically sound, like "expectations about life with other people, e.g. the dog.")
 

The other day, I was a little convicted about my attitude about the dog. After all, I live where and a stupid dog can get me down?! So I offered a halfhearted, "Thank you, Father, for Charlie Brown." I would miss his jumps and nips and dirt and noise and lurking and sad brown eyes if he weren't around.
 

While his owners were away for two weeks, we the downstairs household dog sat. Hannah decided to take him outside for his first-ever walk in the street (he's been here six months, but he mostly stays on our property, for various reasons). Contrary to her fear that people might look askance at her having a dog because of cultural taboos about owning them, Charlie was a hit. As a guard on a nearby street saw them coming, he stood in the middle of the street, pointed at Charlie, and announced, "America's the best!" Even the children who were too scared to pet him seemed intrigued by Charlie.
 

A couple of days later, someone rang the buzzer at our gate. If we aren't expecting anyone, then it's usually a street sweeper wanting a tip (we discovered after a time that most of us had been tipping our local street sweeper without knowing that the others were also tipping, so he had good reason to hang out at our gate) or someone wanting to earn a little money by picking up trash in our yard or occasionally one of us without our key. Often times we ignore the buzzer if we aren't expecting someone, because it's easier than donning a balto and going out front and asking, "Men?" ("Who?") then saying, "No," if we recognize "money" in the ensuing stream of Arabic words.
 

This time I did go (sans balto) out and ask, "Men?" All I could hear was a soft voice saying, "Charlie." Thinking it might be the Ethiopian girl who lives on our property, I gingerly opened the door. Lo, it was two little neighbor boys, ages seven and nine. They wanted to see Charlie. Of course he was there already, and they petted him and he would have purred if he were a cat. I started talking to them in my broken Arabic, but the seven-year-old informed me, "We speak English." Okay then. So we spoke English while they admired my nemesis.
 

These neighbor boys have been invited over to play with the boys on our property, but they have never come. It took visiting Charlie to get them here. One actually asked if they could buy him, and I was momentarily tempted to sell him then and there, but I refrained. "He's not mine," I apologized.
 

I have been hoping for chances to meet more of our neighbors, and perhaps Charlie himself is that chance. Maybe I'll be a little less halfhearted when I thank Father for him next time.