Twice Bitten
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And not by mosquitoes although I have plenty of those bites to go around. Yes those are my two-year pale calves up there with the bruises that hardly show up when photographed. Yesterday they looked worse, today better. The big bruise on my right leg is already yellow in the middle so healing well.

Here's what happened: Last Wednesday at 6:45 in the morning, I was on my way to the bus that would take me to the train station that would take me to camp in the village, when I turned a corner near my apartment and surprised a pack of wild dogs some guy was feeding from his doorway. I didn't know they were there, but one on the outskirts of the pack was apparently surprised and threatened by my sudden appearance. I'm sure with my big backpack and the big tent in a bag I was carrying I seemed like a large threatening human coming up behind him when he wasn't too sure he wanted to get closer to the human in front of him with the food.

He never growled. But barked threateningly and charged. I had time to back away, tell myself not to run or he would chase me, and realize even if I didn't run he was still coming for me. He bit twice. Once on each leg. And ran away. I screamed, fell down, was going to cry - decided not to cry - realized I couldn't bet back on my feet with my big backpack on and the guy feeding the dogs had to come and help me. Among my thoughts were - Did he bite me? I never thought a dog would bite me. If I'm bleeding I have to go to Bucharest for the rabies shots.

I was bleeding, but not a lot. My first thought was "It's just a scratch. I've had worse falling off my bike." I think it was the dogs equivalent I think to shoving someone out of the way so you can run down the stairs and out of the house before the cops show up. It wasn't until I was on the bus to the train station, trying not to bleed on the car, that I realized my legs actually hurt. Later the bruises started to swell and show up but and once I got a band-aid one of the punctures bleed for about half a day. I count myself lucky, though. If the dog had been angry he certainly could have done more damage.

Rabies shots - for those of you afraid of needles, injections, and long grueling amounts of time spent on trains you should probably not read on.

I ended up getting on the bus to the train station, buying tickets then dumping my water bottle on the wounds before getting on the train to camp. On the way one of our high school student leaders insisted on cleaning the wounds again with my bottle of hand-sanitizer. Peace Corps doctors insisted I come to Bucharest for the anti-rabies shots so rather than going out to the camp ground with everyone else I had lunch in Baru Mare and got back on the train. Nine hours later I arrived in Romania's capital where thankfully I met a friend and went out to dinner rather than dragging my sorry self to the hotel and finding food alone.

Thursday morning at 8:15 I saw our Peace Corps doctor and received four shots. One in the arm, one in the butt and one in each bite (yeah, and I got bit twice!) And a schedule telling me I had to come back four more times for the rest of the anti-rabies treatments. Took an afternoon train home for seven hours spent the night at home at my apartment and early Friday morning set out for camp - made it there by Friday afternoon.

Saturday night, we ended camp around three, was back on a train at nine. Midnight took the overnight train to Bucharest, got to the office at 7:00, 7:30 had a shot, 9:45 was on a train back to Deva - arrived in Deva at 7pm.

The thing about the anti-rabies shots is I'm glad they have them and that Peace Corps makes us get them if we're bit by an animal. However, I don't have any reason to suspect that the dog had rabies and when I think about it not having rabies, I just get upset at all the time I have to spend traveling for these shots. In other PC countries you can get three shots when you show up in country so you don't get rabies in the event that you are bitten (like the vaccines you give your pet dog so they DON'T get rabies.) I'm not sure why we don't do that here because three shots is ultimately less than six (or in my case nine) but then again I only know of three other volunteers who have actually been bitten by dogs.

Getting bit by a dog is surely going to make me hate trains. I have to go back to Bucharest again overnight train Wednesday night spend three hours in Bucharest and come back Thursday night. And again next week, and then again in two weeks. At least hopefully by August 7th The Dark Knight may be playing in Bucharest and if that's the case I won't be in such a hurry to get back to site.