Puppies, Perspectives and Poo

by Clare Jorgensen (Australia)

I didn't expect to find India

Where could the mosquitoes POSSIBLY be coming from? My irritation is very quickly turning into desperation as aggressive little red mounds jerk me into clawing at my skin. I breathe in the sand on the canvas of the cot as I try to distract my twitching fingers from the masochistic ecstasy that would be scratching that itch. There is sand everywhere. In my hair; in the creases of my eyelids; the depths of my inner ear. The occasional bit of grit makes me snap my eyes open as I grind my teeth against the impulse to slash at my rapidly- more-ravaged skin. It makes sense, for we are after all, in a desert. I don't know if I blame Aladdin or the billowing of the crisp cottons of the Middle East, but somewhere along the way, someone decided a camel safari out into desolated dunes was romantic. Now indeed, the eery stillness that the Sahara is famed for can absolutely be alluring. Those magnificent and mighty dunes, rippling out into the horizon in folds of burnt tangerine thanks to the sinking sun. This however, is not the Sahara. Oh no. Somehow I've found myself in a camel caravan, deep in the north-west of India, somewhere in the vicinity of Jaisalmer and not far from the Pakistani border, swaddled sarcophagus style in one of those awfully itchy woollen blankets, in the great outdoors. It is a night promised out under the stars but merciless mosquitoes aside, this is not the bedouin boudoir that one has been trained to anticipate from all things vast and sandy. It seems that the corridor for camel caravans in the area must be small, because the collection of animal droppings sprawling before us is almost as far-flung as the dunes themselves. I can handle the poop - one doesn't come out into the desert anticipating a pair of port-a-loos strapped to the sides of a camel - but there are also puppies. Three stray pups are playing at the campsite upon our arrival. As twilight sets in, they enchant our entourage as only babies can. We all coo and plunge our hands into our bags in search of our cameras for a profile shot against the sunset. Amongst us we marvel at their life; how innocence is personified right there in front of us - three fawn, who-knows-what-mixture mutts, tumbling and leaping without any great concern for their onlookers nor their future fate. The pups keep us transfixed until dinner time, when they slink away as the cameleers chase them from our feet. Just like that, innocence is cast back out into the night. They are forgotten, those stray babes, until sometime in the early morning, when yours truly is contemplating commandeering a camel to go in search of civilisation with the mission to acquire atomic grade mosquito repellent. There is a crunch, and a rustle beneath me and an erect tail bobbed past the peephole that is my eye line from inside the makeshift woollen onesie. I wiggle to the corner of the cot, and peer over the edge. One of the pups has my water bottle and is gnashing the outside with the determination of dehydration in the desert. He's then joined by his sibling, who attempts to take the bottle from him. A fight breaks out beneath me, and as one head after another butts me in the back, I have to muse that maybe I should have got my rabies shot. The is a bit of growling, a yelp and someone makes a dash for the dunes. I sidle to the edge once more and peep below me. A lone pup remains gnawing at the plastic bottle, its contents sloshing inside. I can see him closer now; lit by the moon, he is distressingly skinny. Those earlier shots in the golden hues of sunset had been masked by frivolity and had been so easy to overlook. The baby below me is starving. Above us, the northern hemisphere truly glistened. The inky depths of where other worldly wonders reside was mesmerising, but I don't need to gape at the galaxy to see perspective. It's looking back at me, despite the dung, fighting for life.