Lollipop- My new best friend

A couple of weeks ago I just got a new bundle of joy to welcome into my household- a salt and pepper grey bunny rabbit who I have named Lollipop. Ever since I was a young girl I have loved rabbits. I had three growing up as a kid and have always wanted more since. So, as my fellow Peace Corps volunteers were collecting lost puppies and crying kitties, I was searching for my rabbit. Many Peace Corps volunteers get pets, which can often improve their mental health, basically having someone to cuddle with or talk to when there is really no one else around can be filled by such a loving pet. Sometimes people get cats to kill the mice in their house. Sometimes they get a dog to protect them at night. Whatever the case I knew a bunny was obviously the best pet to get. So, on the hunt, I asked all my friends if they knew where I could find a rabbit to buy as a pet. I asked every veternarian/animal-related store in the city closest to me and was already planning how I could properly fit and house it. When I finally thought that I could not find a bunny as a pet and many Peace Corps volunteers thought my crazy was slightly odd, I found Lollipop and her brothers and sisters. Lollipop was sold by a man who lived across from the high school in the town over from my town. She and her siblings were fat as can be and all different colors. She was being fattened up to be sold and eaten. Rabbit is a meat that is apparently very delicious and slightly more expensive than goat here. I stopped by the house to check on these bunnies every week for three weeks before a got a hold of the owners. When I finally got in touch with him and told him I wanted to buy a bunny, I told him I wanted a female and he put her in a box and a meshbag and drove me on the back of his motorcycle to my house.

Lollipop has moved into my house. I have since gotten her a rabbit cage, which she uses for a little box and eats there. Lolli eats rabbit food that I can buy in the city as well as vegetables mostly at night that I give her. When I am away from site I have a couple of the neighbor kids take care of her which is very sweet of them. All she needs is her water and food filled up every day.

It took me almost a week since I got her to notice that she is missing most of her right back foot. She only has one toe left on that foot, something that must have happened in her previous home, but she hops and gets around normally. She mostly is allowed to hop around free in my two-room house. I have grown to love her dearly and she is such a comfort for me when she nuzzles up against me, I get to pet her incredibly soft fur, or simply she is another presence in the house. Lolli has also been a little bit of a trouble-maker. She chewed through C.S.’s computer power cord, a very prized possession in this country. She has bitten my arm when she no longer wants to be held any longer. One of her favorite things to eat are my papers I show at my talks to my groups. She sometimes likes to hop on my couch and pee there just before she knows I am going to sit down. Also, she sometimes does not use her litter box. Despite these annoyances I don’t know what I would do without her and I feel so, so lucky to have her as my companion in my times especially when I am lonely.

By now all of the neighbor kids and adults know about Lolli and will ask about her whenever I come over. Whenever the kids walk by my house they always want to see Lolli hopping around the house. Often the Donas are scared of her when I show her, but I think eventually everyone grows to love her. Everyone asks me if I am going to eat my rabbit soon and I always answer no, which sometimes seem strange to them, but they know I am already the strange Americana who does weird things so by now they have gotten used to not being surprised by what I do.