It's a smell that you can never unsmell, and it lingers in your nostrils for ever. The smell of death and decaying flesh.
We've been in our city-fringe new house since Christmas and for the last 3 weeks have been plagued by the smell of something very dead nearby. And FLIES - so many flies - dozens of them, in the house, everyday! And flies are NOT common in Northern Thailand, at all.
She with the very sensitive nose has been wandering about sniffing and poking, a little wary of disturbing the jungle round our house due to snakes etc. And equally a little anxious about the source of the very dead smell.
The last days we had very heavy and unseasonal rain, after which the smell has become much, much worse. And then yesterday, determined to get the bottom of it, I FOUND the source.
A bag. A BIG bag. Semi obscured in dirt and undergrowth, directly opposite our font gate at the fringe of some semi-wild jungle.
Someone had optimistically thrown bags of tamarind around - the seeds grow easily and fast and will cover the area in no time. But the heavy rain had unearthed what someone wanted to hide.
I called our landlady who called our gardener, Khun Daeng. He gave me that "silly blonde who's afraid of everything" look initially and manfully went to get a close look. I went with him to photograph, if needed.
The sack had old bloodstains on it and was tied very, very securely. Ominous. Khun Daeng went a little pale and gagged at the smell.
Khun Daeng was too scared to do more without an OK from the police. Because he actually thought, as did I, that it might be a child from the migrant worker camp down the road. The Thai Government amnesty which ended on 13th February has already seen over 540,000 illegal Burmese and Cambodian workers come forward. We speculated that it was unlikely to be a dog, since the local temple down the road will happily cremate dogs for poorer people at no cost - they add them into the furnace at regular people cremations, with the consent of the family who earn extra merit for their deceased loved one by sending a fellow creature off with them, with respect.
And so the whole of Sunday afternoon passed. Khun Daeng first went off to get the Phuu Yai Baan - the "village head man" is probably the best translation: the lowest ranking government official who deals with all kinds of neighborhood things. Khun Oh, the Phuu Yai Baan, dutifully came and was equally nervous. He went off to get the OK from the local policeman.
Eventually, around 4.30pm, the policeman came to oversee the opening of the bag. He and I, watching and photographing, whilst standing as far back due to the hideous smell. Never been so glad for my facemask drenched in Organic Cretan Lavender.
Khun Oh and Khun Daeng unearthed the sack completely, which was CRAWLING with maggots. Urgh. They carefully cut the bindings and then stood as far back as possible (the stink!!) and used their hoes to open the bag enough to be able to peer inside.
I shall spare you any more gory details. It was not a child. It was a large dog which had been tightly bound, stuffed in the bag alive, clubbed and then seemingly left in the bag to suffocate and die. According to the policeman. Cos if the dog was already dead it would have simply been left at the temple gate overnight for the monks to take care of.
I will never unsee it.
I was sickened. All of us were. At man's inhumanity to other creatures. I can't look at that spot yet without feeling queasy and oh-so-sad for how that poor animal must have suffered.
My 16 year old daughter asked me over and over last night... "Why didn't they just take the dog to a temple or one of the dog rescue places if they couldn't feed or keep it?" And I have been asking that question of myself, over and over.
They buried him there yesterday evening, where he had been dumped, and I spread some of the tamarind pods over the spot to at least bring something strong and new out of this terrible crime. Tamarind trees are so very beautiful.
Animal cruelty is the depths of depravity. We CAN measure our humanity by how we treat our children, our old people and our animals. Our collective human scorecard isn't always very encouraging.
Grateful to Khun Daeng and Khun Oh for their assistance and respect. Grateful it wasn't the child of one of the illegal migrant workers. Planning to make a special donation to our local Hand To Paw Rescue Group in this poor dog's memory.
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