It’s been a while. I think. I’m not sure—the days and nights have started to blend together, and I’m having trouble keeping track of what day of the week it is. Or what month it is. It’s all very confusing. But there are definitely some highlights of the last few days that I think are important to share, even though many of the days feel the same.
The honeymoon phase here has officially ended, but I’m glad: even though the novelty has worn off and I’m tired and cranky and frustrated, I still want to be here. And I think that means something.
Tonight, I am here alone, taking care of six puppies. They are all sleeping in a pile, minus my girl who’s in bed with me because she loves to snuggle me. One of the volunteers left today, and the other is in Guatemala City right now to bring a dog to the airport. ROUND TWO. Let me explain:
A few days ago, I was awoken at 4:30am because (the same) dog needed to go to the airport, but NOTHING WAS READY like it was supposed to be. There was no dog food ready, but the worst part is that the lock was on the gates to outside, and for some reason, only one of the workers has it. So we spent the next half hour trying to break open/pick/saw through the lock on the gate. We were unsuccessful, due to shitty-ass lock-cutters. The person driving them to the airport was supposed to be picking them up at 5.
At 5:30, they finally showed up, along with (luckily) the employee who has the lock to the gate. We loaded them up, and they were off.
But then, like twenty minutes later, the volunteer is texting me furiously, because she doesn’t know anything about this flight, and her phone can’t make phone calls and the owner here has an old phone that can’t even text, so I automatically become the in-between person. Basically, there was a whole lack of communication before they left, nobody told anybody where to go or what to do, and it was a whole mess that I was TRYING to fix but nobody knew anything. So this went on for several hours and people were in the wrong areas of the airport, looking for people who didn’t exist, not knowing anything about the flight…it was terrible, and in the end, they missed the flight because they weren’t told to go to cargo. Fortunately, it was rescheduled for tomorrow morning, and hopefully things go much more smoothly.
Today was hard. We lost one of my favorite dogs, and all three of us volunteers feel responsible. Which we kind of are. It’s a lot of pressure to have on your shoulders, and even though I’m not the one diagnosing and administering meds for the most part, I’m still making decisions and observing behaviors and poop. Her family dropped her off here because she barked too much, apparently. She was beautiful and healthy and so much fun to be around—she knew her name and would jump on you when you called her. But with this type of shelter, where dogs are in packs and not in individual pens, you need to make sure they’ll get along with the other dogs before you put them outside. So she was in the clinic, in a tiny kennel. And she was miserable.
After a few days, her health started to decline. She was clearly depressed and stressed, and I’m sure that had something to do with it. And then she kept getting worse. Even though she was fine when she arrived, she ended up getting worms and needing antibiotics and stuff. She got pretty lethargic, but we thought it might be her depression, because apparently it was exactly how she was acting when she was brought in. So we made the decision to put her outside with a couple other dogs that she was getting along with. But the day we walked them all together, I was really worried about her. I knew she was sick. And we put her out there anyway, thinking it might help her not to be penned up. Two days later, she was dead.
There’s nothing to do about it now, except to do better next time.
Today we also had to test a dog for parvo—not one of our dogs, thank god. It was really really sick and the other two volunteers are pretty sure he’s not going to make it. They did what they could—some amoxicillin, some fluids—but it’s not the best treatment for parvo, because we have such limited resources here. If he doesn’t get to a vet in the next day, he won’t make it, and he still may not even still. VACCINATE YOUR DOGS, PEOPLE! The only good thing was I got to learn a lot.
Even though today was hard, there have also been some wins. Yesterday, I got a dog adopted, and it was so rewarding. They had wanted a friend for their husky, a young dog, but they didn’t really connect with any of the big puppies. And then I thought about one that had just left the clinic a few days ago, a beautiful dog that I love—and suggested him. I got him out, they met him, and they decided to take him! It was such a good feeling that specifically because I had a relationship with this dog, I knew he would be a good fit, and I could talk about him and everything. It was so cool to know that if it hadn’t been for me, they may not have found the right dog, but because of me, we have one less dog on our hands and in a happy home!
THIS IS OFF TOPIC but I realized I haven’t written about it yet. THE KITE FESTIVAL! I really wanted to be in Mexico for Day of the Dead, but when I realized it wasn’t going to happen, I did a little research and found out that Guatemala does this kite festival on November 1st, and the biggest one is right here, in Sumpango.
Even though I was technically taking the day off, of course I still worked in the morning, because dogs don’t know what holidays are. I then walked two miles into the center of town, and then to the cemetery, because that’s mostly where the festival is. LITERALLY THE WHOLE TOWN AND THE POPULATION OF LIKE, SIX OTHER TOWNS THE SAME SIZE WAS THERE. It was one of the biggest festivals I’ve ever seen. The whole cemetery was FILLED with people flying kites, praying, lighting incense and candles for their deceased. It was beautiful and happy and somber all at the same time.
But it wasn’t just the cemetery. The streets were FILLED with vendors, and they were jam-packed with people. AND it’s like super duper hilly, which made things more tiring but somehow more exciting. My Dutch friend traveled all the way from Flores to hang out with me, which made the day so much better. He also brought along a couple girls that he had met on the shuttle over, and we all hung out for a while, drinking all the Quezelteca we could find, impulse buying jewelry (okay that was just me) and looking at all the amazing kites flying around.
There were also these GIANT kites that are on display, some of them for a contest of sorts. They are INCREDIBLE and ginormous and they don’t fly them until later in the day, and there’s an announcer and stuff, and lots of the kites don’t make it, and crash on the ground, where there were people. One actually landed on some bleachers, and a medical team had to rush over to them (I THINK everyone was okay?). Dutch guy and I spent the rest of the evening together, walked around, went into the cemetery at night, which was now full of candles. It was just one of the most wonderful experiences. There were some tourists there, but it was FOR locals, and that made it so much better than like, half the things I end up doing when I travel anyway.
And what a way to honor those who have departed. Making and flying kites, celebrating every year with your family and friends.
Anyway, we just walked around together for the rest of the evening, until it was like 10 and I was like, hmm, I should probably go home seeing as I was supposed to be back at like…4? Whoops. It was a long-ass walk, and got more and more deserted as we went. Fun fact that we learned: there are no cabs that run after 7pm. No buses, no nothing. And he had to get back to Antigua. But apparently there’s Uber here—yay!! So we were walking to the shelter, and then this dog comes limping up to us. I had seen him earlier in the day, I remembered his broken front leg. It made me feel better than we had a dog with us. He followed us all the way down the dirt road to the shelter, a pretty far walk. We said our goodbyes, and I closed the gate behind me and told him to stay…but he FOUND A WAY INSIDE THE GATE. There must be a hole somewhere or something. I have another five or so minute walk in the pitch black to another gate (thank god for for phone flashlights!) and the dog stayed by my side the entire time. I’m convinced that he wanted to keep me safe. Again, I locked him outside the gates, went inside, and went to bed.
The next morning he was still there. He’s ours now, because he obviously wasn’t happy at home. He’s been to the vet—it was an old break, nothing we can do about it. But he’s the sweetest dog ever. I’ve named him Tamarindo and he’s such a sweetheart.
I’m tired and I need to be up at at 6 tomorrow to take a dog to the vet, so…even if that didn’t cover everything, too bad.
Also being a mother to six puppies is hard. They keep trying to kill each other.