The dogs in my neighbourhood are angry. You can tell from the way they move—quick, cautious, always ready to pounce. Their ribs press through their skin, their fur looks like old rags, and their eyes are never still. They sleep all day on warm dust, twitching in their sleep, maybe dreaming of scraps they never get. But at night, they wake and turn into something else—wild, sharp, full of noise and nerve. They fight cats, tear through garbage, and sometimes corner drunk men who wander home too late. The night belongs to them.

The day one of them bit me, I was boiling with rage. I wasn’t teasing it, not even looking its way. I was just walking. Then out of nowhere, pain flared in my thigh—a quick, hot stab—and I spun around to see it trotting away as if nothing happened. I remember shouting, cursing, and standing there feeling both hurt and insulted. I couldn’t understand it. Why would a dog bite me for no reason? Did I look too human, too unworried, too full? The thought was so absurd that I even wondered, half laughing, half angry, if sheep would start biting me next.

That night, I lay in bed listening to them bark and fight. I couldn’t sleep. I kept thinking of that one—its dull eyes, the way it didn’t even care to run. Maybe it wasn’t angry at me. Maybe it was angry at the world. Maybe it bit me because that’s what happens when hunger has no language left—when everything soft has already been starved out.

A few days later, I went to Eastleigh. It’s not far, but it feels like another life altogether. The air there smells of grilled meat and new fabric, people shouting prices and greetings in ten different tones. And there, along one street, I see dogs again—but these ones are nothing like ours.

They are healthy, calm, shining. Their fur looks brushed, their bodies full, their faces peaceful. Some are lying in the middle of the road, unbothered by cars and motorbikes. Others nap under shopfronts, their ears twitching lazily. One female dog stretches in the sun, her belly heavy with milk, her pups tumbling over her legs. She looks at me, and for a moment, I feel like she’s seeing right through me—not with threat, but with quiet ownership.

I stand there for a long time, watching them live so effortlessly. They aren’t fighting. They aren’t desperate. They look fed. They look content. Around them, the street itself seems kinder—people drop bones, pour out leftovers, call out to them casually. There’s no fear, no barking, no hunger disguised as rage.

And I start to realize: it’s not really about the dogs. It’s about what we choose to feed—and what we choose to starve. In Maringo, hunger rules everything. Even kindness feels rationed. The dogs bite because there’s nothing else left to do. In Eastleigh, food spills over, laughter echoes, and even strays find a place to rest. The difference isn’t in the dogs—it’s in what the world gives them.

I think back to that bite, to my anger, and I start feeling something different. Maybe it wasn’t about me at all. Maybe the dog just reached its breaking point. Maybe we all have one. Maybe when life keeps taking, something inside us—dog or human—learns to bite back.

I keep walking down that Eastleigh street, the smell of meat still thick in the air, the dogs breathing slow and easy around me. And I can’t help thinking how strange it is—that the same city can raise two kinds of creatures, separated only by a few roads, one learning to rest, the other learning to bite.