I forgot this....

We both worked as volunteer mediators at Neighborhood Dispute Settlement in Harrisburg...tho at different times.  We know a lot of the same people in the legal/mediation communities in and around Harrisburg. 

Incredible

Small world

I was invited to join another volunteer yesterday for lunch as she wanted to introduce me to another volunteer from her group who is in the "older" category.  Well, get this.   The other volunteer, Carol, is exactly my age, she practiced law for 25 years in Carlisle, PA, graduated from DU law school ( night division) one year after I did ( 84 and 83) and ...of course...is here as a PC volunteer in Nicaragua.

Now, that's a  pretty good coincidence !!!!!

Pat

I have not died or gone native

OK, I have no excuse for the hiatus.....I have a series of them and when I look at them as a group, none of them should be accepted.

I have not posted for a long time and I want to thank my friends who emailed and asked about my well being.  I was so embarrassed to respond with my lame excuses and now I am finally blogging.

I have gotten a lot busier... my Spanish is a lot better so I am able to spend more time in the community just chatting.  My work in the schools has taken a little different direction so now I am working with high school kids too.  I know my way around Nicaragua a little better so now I am taking off on weekends to see some of the other parts of the country.  And, to add to these lame excuses, we have power failures and internet signal fails on a frequent basis.

But, to be truthful, I also downloaded 4 seasons of Breaking Bad from Itunes and later 2 seasons of 6 Feet Under and watching those has not helped.

Enough already.   Last night I went with my counterpart to a Nicaraguan wedding ( boda) out in the country.  We took her family's camioneta ( pickup) and it was quite a ride. First we had to jump start the truck and then we went to buy diesel ( which you buy from the same house that sells milk/cheese products so you can imagine the variety of smells when you walk by their gate) which they have in a big steel drum and they dip into with your container ( quart, gallon whatever you are buying this time) and then they pour it into your vehicle.    It was dirt roads all the way and it was about a one hour trip.  Lots of dust in our wake and in our vehicle should we have the bad luck to come upon another vehicle.  We only saw one other truck and several motorcycles, a  couple head of cattle and a couple bicycles. It was pretty remote.

But, the boda was another story.  Apparently everyone one in the comarca is expected to attend so there must have been 3 or 4 hundred people there.  The groom's family provides food and drink for all of them and later the obligatory cake.  It was not a "sit down" dinner but they did have some tables and chairs set up.  They also had a bunch of plastic chairs set up around the dance floor.  Everything was outside, of course, and this is the dry season so there is no chance of rain.  They obviously had watered the whole place down very thoroughly as there was no dust from the hundreds of people dancing to the blasting music under the giant screen showing the music videos. There was the typical lighting and the bride in her white dress ( which I watched sweep across the open dirt for several hours) so I am sure it was filthy by the end. There were the usual older folks sitting around in little groups watching the activities. All in all, not too unlike what we do.  The only different part is that they somehow can put this all together and have a wonderful time knowing that their homes have dirt floors, they cook over open fires fueled by wood, the kids will likely not get further than 6th grade in school, etc.  This all seems so hard for me to understand.

  Anyhow , we left around 10:30 and brought a couple from the wedding back with us to Malpaisillo.  They rode in the back of the pickup the whole way and when we got home, they climbed out in their wedding clothes with their little overnight gym bag and walked a few blocks to the mercado where they were going to sleep for the night .  No, there is no mo or ho tel, they would have just curled up together in a corner to wait for the first bus in the morining which is about 5:30 am.  Ohhhh, to be young again. 

Otherwise, last week I had a great meeting with 2 ladies from the community and one of the teachers from the Catholic school to plan a vivero ( nursery) project for the kids at the Catholic school. One of my goals with  Peace Corps is education about the environment and to do that thru teaching the kids how to collect seeds, extract and dry them, and plant a tree nursery in the schools.   I was sort of paralyzed about how to get started when I learned that the mother of one of the boys has a "commercial" vivero at her house.  Anyhow it was crazy for me to be teaching about viveros when we had an expert in our midst.  Then, later when chatting with the lady who sells me my newspaper, I discovered that she and her husband ( who has been dead many years) were part of the Sandinista agricultural movement back in the early 80s, starting and running agricultural cooperatives, and that they used to do viveros with the retired people in the communities to plant trees in their communities. ( she later explained to me that many of the trees they planted were wiped out by hurricane Mitch- that is so typical of the luck of this country....one step forward, two steps back)   So, I got these women together with a teacher and we planned the whole thing, with me doing very little.  I have decided that my primary goal with the Peace Corps in to teach the teachers how to use the resources they already have, rather than start new projects which likely will dissolve when I leave.

Incidentally, the woman who has the commercial vivero ( Sandra) just got back from 21 days in England.  She went there as a representative of her local cooperative which grows sesame and she was hosted in England by the company they grow for.  I don't know all the details, but it just another one of those contradictions..she lives in house with a dirt floor, they cook over wood, their sewage and gray water goes into a hole in the ground, etc. and they fly to England for 21 days of meetings.   It just blows my mind.

Incidentally, as I write this , a horse just galloped by my front door. 

One other random incident....I got robbed again;   its been about a month now so I have given up hope of getting my Iphone back.  Anyhow, I am partly to blame for this one.  I have a basket on the back of my bike, which I got originally to carry plastic bottles in when I was hot on the plastic bottle recycling kick.  ( as a side light here....there is a man in town who collects them and recycles so now I take my bottles to him.  He used to be a teacher but he is of the wrong political party so he lost his job teaching when the politics changed)    I have a plastic bag hanging on my front gate and my neighbors are putting their bottles in there for me to take to him.  Also, a kid showed up the other day at my door with a big bag of bottles so I gave him an  apple.  A few hours later 2 kids showed up with bags of bottles and I  gave them each 1/2 an apple.   As luck would have it, a couple hours later 4 kids showed up with bottles and I gave them a bag of peanuts to share.  I was REALLY scared about what would come next but no one has been back since.  Either they didn't like my peanuts or they got distracted by something else. But, maybe I made a little progress on bottle recycling here)

Back to the robbery:  So, I was riding my bike home one night, just before dark, with my mochilla ( back pack) in my basket behind me and a kid came up beside me on his bike, deftly leaned over and snatched up my mochilla and took off into the semi darkness.  At first , I thought it was a joke and that it was a kid I knew just teasing me. But, no, it was for real.  I chased him for a while and I think he was really shocked when he turned back to look and saw grandma bearing down on him cause he really took off then.  We got into some darker parts of the street so I turned back.

I went to our local police to report it ( with the help of my counterpart) and they loaded us into their pickup and took us for a hair raising ride around the area looking for the kid.  Of course I did not see his face as he swept by me with my mochilla so I could not identified him even if we had found a suspect ( unless he was actually using my phone at the time.)

Anyhow, I did not get my phone back but another kid did find my mochilla tossed into a basuero ( open trash pit) and he returned it to the police and then his mother came to my house and told me about it so I gave him a reward.  My wallet ( sans the 50 cordobas which must have been a deep disappointment to the thief since they all think we gringos carry wads of money around with us) was there along with my appointment book, journal, copy of my passport so I was pleased to get all that back.  What has been so rewarding about this story is that people all over town, including those who I have never spoken too or even noticed, have commented to me about my robbery and expressed their sorrow for it.  A random girl in one of my high school classes the other day even knew that it was an Iphone that had been stolen....so I guess that makes me a legend of some sort around here for a few days at least.

In closing,  recently I have had the pleasure of meeting an adventuous Italilan couple who are "homesteading" on about 7 hectares outside of town ( they are currently living in tents while they build their house with stones ,etc from the property) and have agreed to take my 2 cats when I leave.  I also spent some quality time with a delightful young lady from Austin, Texas who was down here for a month getting some "public health" experience for the master's in Nursing she is working on at U. of Texas.  She commented to me that she was amazed and impressed by how hard the nurses down ehre work.  She is also a flight attendant  ( asafata in Spanish) with Frontier Airlines and lived in Denver a while.  Next, she is going to Barcelona for a year on a Rotary International scholarship so no one can ever use lack of resources as an excuse for getting stuck in their town.  She knows how to get out t here and LIVE !!  She will be a great nurse or diplomat or whatever she decides to do.  I tried to sell the Peace Corps to her and all the benefits she could later reap with Peace Corps on her resume.....so, who knows?  She would be a great representative of the US, should she decide to join up.

That's it for now.  I did get approval to come home in Sept. for our family reunion in Port Royal, PA so that was great news.

Love to all...count your blessings.
Pat

A cacao fruit containing the seeds we are going to plant to grow more trees.  This what they look like before they are roasted and turn chocolate colored.  These are the hands of the older woman who, with her deceased husband, were true fighters in the Sandinista rebellion.

My attempt at artistic photo of rooftops out the window of a hostal in Leon.

An intersection in Leon

I met a family of 4 traveling thru the Americas roundtrip from Ontario on two bikes with two kids for a year.

Another view of the bikes. The family was across the street having ice cream and letting the kids play on the playground equipment.

Javier trying to find a cool sleeping position.

This is a Hicaral tree...the fruit sprout  out of the bark.

A little dance class at the public primary school.

This sad little bird calls out " Buenas" all day in his little nasal bird sounding voice to people who walk by.

A

Lisa , a young PC vol who joined me for brunch at El Convento Hotel in Leon.   I was meeting my Spanish teacher afterwards.  She is from Maine and is here teaching English with PC.

a typical little house

another typical scene

A group of kids off to school.

Review of Christmas and New Year's in Malpaisillo

OK, the easy news to start with is that Peace Corps is "closing" its program in Honduras.  Apparently, Honduras has the highest crime or homicide rate in the world and the narcotafficking has gotten totally out of control.  Technically, and this is in the newspapers so I'm not violating any secrecy code, PC is sending all the volunteers home for 30 days while the staff visits all the sites to make sure they are safe but its not likely that the volunteers will be allowed to return for the forseeable future. 

El Salvador and Guatemala are not in very good shape either but they are not closing those programs at this time.  I am told that Nicaragua is not in danger because it has always had and continues to have a very strong police force and Army which has been able to keep a cap on the organized drug trafficking here.  Hope so.  In the paper they report that there is a lot of it on our East/carribean coast but not so much on our side, the west side, where the bulk of the population and commerce ( and PC volunteers ) are.   We do have some volunteers on the carribean coast but apparently they are are in places that are considered safe. 

Another christmas and new years has passed here and they were both much as I recall last year.  I spent both in site without much excitement...which was just fine.  On Christmas day, I went to the beach with my counterpart and her family...photos attached.  I took along another volunteer from a nearby town who has just recently gotten here but I was really disappointed in her manners.  Never said thank you or in any way showed appreciation to the family.  I won't be inviting her anywhere soon again. 

One thing I have noticed is that there are a lot of families visiting around and that many people take a chicken with them when they go to visit on Christmas.  The chicken is usually hanging upside down along side the person, or off the side of a motorcycle, sometimes stashed away in a sack under the seat in the bus and you don't even know they are there until they get pulled out to get off the bus,  The most unlucky ones are tied on top of the bus for what I am sure is a harrowing ( because it is harrowing inside the bus ) ride to their final destination.  Hopefully, they don't know it will be their final destination.  Anyhow, as much as I feel sorry for the chicken, it is sweet that people bring them with them when they go to visit.  A little bit of a skinny  thigh or wing is treasured by many people here and I am sure is considered to be a quite nice gift.

On Christmas eve, I went into Leon and had lunch with another "over 50" volunteer and her daughter who is visiting from CA.  That was nice....a diversion.  I am actually used to the bus craziness...it does not even phase me anymore.   I have learned how to pick and choose which bus to get on and where to sit or stand so as they say....knowledge is power....that even applies to riding a bus.

 One bus story.....I got on this bus early so I was in the seat right behind the driver...close to the door, etc. and a young woman got on assisting an older woman and it turned out that she was just putting the older woman on the bus..probably sending on to another sibling somewhere.  Anyhow, this older woman started mumbling about " cosa de horno"  ( translates literally as "thing from the oven")  clearly she wanted a cosa de horno.  There are a lot of women in the mercado/bus station who sell all types of food, including cosas de horno.  Well, this older woman knew what she wanted and was relentless.  No matter what anyone was selling, as they passed her she tugged at their arm or shirt and babbled, Cosa de horno.cosa de horno.  One young woman assured her that she would send over the woman who sells cosas de horno, but.....she never came.  After about .5 hour, the bus started pulling out and the older woman looked forlornly at  the mercado passing in the windows, continuing to babble cosa de horno, cosa de horno.    Soo sad.  She never got a cosa de horno.  But, happy ending.  As the bus pulled out and turned the corner on to the main road, leaving all cosa de horno vendors behind, she opened her little suitcase type thing,  pulled out a bottle of coca cola and a bag of chips and chowed down.   All's well that ends well. 

Another bus story, I went to Managua on the 30th for a couple things and at the end of the day got on the wrong bus heading back to Leon.  It was a bus  to Leon but it was going on the caretera viejo ( old highway)  rather than the caretera nuevo ( new highway).  Well, when they say viejo...they mean viejo.. I did not know of the alternate route until I was too far into the venture to get off and take a different bus.  I am pretty sure when the gobierno build the neuvo caretera, they gave up all interest in the viejo caretera.  Most of the time, we were riding, in a full sized school bus, alongside the asphalt because there were too many holes ( big ones) in the asphalt and the dirt shoulder was much more usable.  Problem was, oncoming traffic often was vying for the same shoulder we were on so I would spot this huge 18 wheeler heading at us at  a reasonably fast speed, but, just as we were about to collide head on, one or the other of us would find an alternate route, perhaps on to the asphalt, perhaps not, perhaps onto the shoulder of the shoulder.  Very exciting !!!  It took exactly twice as long as the normal trip, so that is 3 hours, but I saw some new countryside and got to Leon in time to get the last bus back to Malpaisillo.  Another case of alls well that ends well.   Didn't have anything else pressing.

My best story to report is that when Helen came to me for her first class after returning from Managua where she had been with her mother for at least 3 weeks, she rememberedEVERYTHING !!!!!!  It was so great...I kept smiling at her, and saying how good she was doing, and then finally I just grabbed her and gave her a big ole hug.  I'm lucky I didn't break some of her ribs..she is very skinny.  But, she clearly was excited too ...a she was reading certain words aloud, she even seemed to surprise herself once  in awhile.  IT was so cute.  When she started with me,   she guessed at every word she saw...she had no way of figuring out a word.  Now she is sounding them out and counting syllables and telling me how one word is different from another....its amazingly wonderful.

This all makes me want to go back to teaching reading but reading in Spanish is soooo much easier than English.   Its a whole different ballgame, but of course still doable...but the rewards are slower coming and it takes a whole lot more work on the part of the teacher. 

Now for some photos;

This is a shot of a hotel in Leon where PC had a meeting.  Its especially charming.

Another view in the same hotel.

I was sitting on the stage, looking out to the kids and parents at the 6th grade graduation at one of my schools.  They do the 6th grade up big as many of the kids don't go any further in school, and many don't make it this far.

This is my other reading student, Marin.  He will be 8 at the end of January and does not know his color words, number words, and lots of other stuff.  He does know some vowel sounds so we have something to work with.  He loves the milk I give him and he found this puzzle on my shelf and could not do anything else until we did it together.   Hes making good progress...slow, but steady.

Doris relaxing in the good chair.

Loading up the truck to go to the beach on Christmas day.  I got to ride in the front since they know PC won't let us ride in the back of pickups.  Its actually illegal for anyone to ride back there but its another law that is not enforced.  Everyone does it. At least  all these people could sit, often they are standing cheek to cheek holding on to that bar.

The Cruz Roja was giving rides in their boats as a fund raiser.  Of course, there were no life jackets.  I just watched.

This was a public well where you could turn that wheel to get water to wash off the sand.  Notice the guy lying in the dirt.  He is drunk, passed out and people just walked around him as tho he was not there.  I tried to get someone to help me drag him into the shade away from the well, but no takers. 

The significance of this photo...thats a goddam tortuga egg.  Yep, illegal but served openly and this family, which is supposed to be "enlightened" ordered them.  What they do is poke a hole in the shell and then suck the raw egg out...yummy !!!

The fishing boats came in and threw these rayas up on the sand.  I think there were 3 or 4 of them.  Their tales had been cut off so maybe they were the stinging type.  Don't know...but so much killing and abuse of animals...its gets sickening after awhile.  The fishermen stuck their fingers in their eyes to pick them up and throw them on the beach...hopefully they were already dead.

The people gathered around when the fishing boats pulled in.

Loading up the truck about 4 pm getting ready to head home.  Pretty sunset.

Its a little hard to read ( I don't like to get my cell phone out too much in the mercado) but the bus is called Arco de Noe, Noah's Ark for the uninitiated.

Ththththththats all folks,
Pat

She died this morning.

When I told the grandmother , her comment was that I ( me) had done everything I could.  She is a very sweet woman.  When she asked her vago son to dig a hole for her outside of their house, he said, Awww, throw her out !!!  ( meaning put her in the garbage)  So, the grandmother got the digging tool and showed me where another dog was buried, and that they would put stones on top to protect her body, and started digging the hole.  I said I'd bring her back in an hour.  She had one other daughter there to help heer.

So sad, but Betty is so right....they just don't know..they don't have the option of  rushing off to the vet when there are signs of illness.  The grandmother told me that Margarita had been "triste" ( sign of a fever) for a couple days and they were getting ready to take her to the vet when I got there.  I feel so bad that I went on that little vaca...but, I know this would have happened later, rather than sooner anyway.  Still, sad.

I learned a lesson about trying to apply my US standards to a developing country...it doesn't translate.

But, the grandmother and I are friends forever and when Helen comes back from visiting her mother in Managua, we will continue our reading classees....can only do what I can do.

This is my last picture of Margarita wrestling with the kitten from her house ( who has moved in here now) before I took her to her house while I left town for 4 days, her last 4 days.

Love, a sad me.

Update on Margarita

Its not good news.  I kept her with me until she had her stitches taken out and there was one little place that was still open so the vet gave me some lotion to put on it with instructions to clean it twice a day.....and another 5 days of antibioticcs.   He said she would be fine returning ot her family if they kept up the cleaning and lotion.

I had planned  a 4 day vaca of sorts so I turned her over to her family ( she really wanted to be with them, she escaped from my house and went there whenever she could)  and when I got back, this morning, I went over to check on her and she was a mess.  Her entire stomach cavity was hard as a rock.  They said she ate and pooped yesterday but clearly she had not today..and she had vomit on the floor of the little place they had her penned in .  I am sure she would have died there if I had not come back. And I told them ( and I know they understood because they told me they were going to take her to the vet) that I would pay if she had any problems while I was gone, and they should not hesitate to take her to the vet.  Clearly, they hesitated !!!

Anyhow, I scooped her up and ran, once again, to the vet and he has hope that with more antibiotics she will beat this infection and be fine.  So, now I have her with me again and will keep her until Jan. 9 when I have another little vaca planned.  What a mess.  But, it was this or let her have puppies and god knows how that would have gone.  She still looks like a puppy herself...how could she have a litter especially with that mangy mongrel I saw her hooked up with ......yuk !!!!!!

What an experience this has been.  

I did spend a little time in Managua and Leon ( while Margarita was suffering, had I known!!!) but boy now I sure feel guilty about being gone !!!! But, it was nice to get away and I had the best night's sleep since I've been here last night in a hostal in Leon. 

I met some nice folks in the hotel in Managua and more in the hostal in Leon so that was nice.  I went to a Mirimba music show at the municipal theater in Leon last night and itt was interesting.  I sat with  a bunch of young people who were staying at the hostal, three from Suisse, one from US, one German and one from Spain.  When one part of the show came on, I leaned over and commented to the one from the US that Monty Python would have a field day with this.'  I was thinking "Life of Brian."

Here is the scene....two rows of mirimbas, one on risers behind the other, with about 6 mirimbas in each row and two girls or boys ( dressed in christmasie colors)  on each mirimba.  Mary and Joseph enter downstage carrying a baby who was literally glowing white and they moved around the stage to Latin Christmas music ( I think it was Feliz Navidad)  with a little sort of salsa step all the while staring down into this doll''s face. Joseph had his staff but it had a small green wreath hanging off of it and it was wrapped with green and red ribbon like a candy cane.  So, the three of them settled in the middle of the stage, in front of the mirimbas and on came a wise man carrying one of the gifts again coming on with a salsa step to the continuing latin christmas music, and this continued for three wise men and several other helpers of some sort.  Anyway, they all gathered around mary and joseph with a tiny girl standing behind them with angel wings and a litte wand with a glittery star on the end, and then all exited again, including the angel,  using that salsa step.  Very cute.

They did have a kid who looked like he was 7 or 8 who sang and had a very mature, beautiful voice.  And they had a guitar player/singer who a lot of the young people seemed to know and love, so all in all it was a big success. 

So, life goes on down here.  I'm back in my site until Jan. 9 when I hope to leave again for about 4 days and then school starts again at the end of January.  The kids don't start until the middle of February...don't know why.  Might find out more later.

One more thing, I got another little boy who cannot read in Spanish.  He seems darling, lots of energy, but I'm playing card games with him and letting him use the scissors and he is just thrilled.  Basically everything they do in school is with pencil and paper or getting to go to the board to put something up there with chalk.  But educational games...never !!!

Love,

This is my favorite tree....it covers half the mercado which is on the other side of those stores and then reaches over to this street to provide all that shade.  Its a "seba" but I can't find it on google.  Its a good ole gal !!!! You can see the brown leaves, this is dry season and they are getting ready to drop which means they'll burn them in the street and streets will be filled with smoke.

Music was blasting from these speakers mounted atop this tricycle carrying Mary thru town.  One of the helpers from the church was selling "rifa" ( raffle) tickets.  I guess just a fund raiser. I'd like to get them started with bingo.

This was a last day activity I got the kids to try.  They are a lovely bunch, very snall class ( 14) 5th graders and all very polite and good learners. The kid with the big smile is Carlos.  One day, after his teacher gave a presentation about something like civics or science, he had been listening intently ( they don't have any text books) and when she finished he said, " Gracias professora."

Pat

Margarita had a bowel movement !!!!!

Hope that gets your attention....you won't believe the last week or so but the last best news I have to report is the Title of this blog....Margarita had a bowel movement !!!!
So, here's the story.   I have blogged about the dear little dog that comes to my porch to eat good food and drink clean water.  Well, she came into heat and I had the unfortunate experience of seeing her being impregnated.  It was just awful....she was flipped over onto her back with her feet pointing toward the male dogs head...I have no idea how they got together but, believe me, they were together.

So, I immediately went to her family ( Helen is in her family so I know the grandmother who runs things) and asked if I could pay to have her spayed.  They were very willing to let me do so.

So, on Saturday after Thanksgiving, Helen and I took her into our local veterinario  at 4 pm and he told us to come back in two hours for her.  Well, two hours later, he said he needed another .5 hour and then he said he needed another two hours.  So, I was in a panic and asked his wife what was going on and she said either he nicked a vein or something like that, but there was a huge blood loss and she did not clot so they worked on her longer.    When I finally got in, she was still heavily under sedation and sort of quivering so I said I would not take her until she was more responsive.  It was about 8 pm before I actually left with her.

  He did the surgery on the same table where he sells chicken food, baby chicks, dog food , and anything else he does there.  His tools were in a stainless steel tray and all he did was pour that brown liquid over them.....I was really starting to panic.

Anyhow, I kept her with me that night and she did pretty well and was a lot more responsive by morning.  The next day I took her back to Helen's and they had a place fixed up for her in what used ot be a shower stall (cement floor) which was good because the rest of the house is dirt floors and that would be troublesome with an incision to keep clean.  The vet sent us home telling us ot feed her hidago de pollo ( which is Spanish for chicken organs so you know I love cooking that stuff up).  Fortunately Margarita loves Hidago and its helping to restore the blood she lost.  It might well be the most protein she's ever had... I think they fed her tortillias and rice.

Anyhow, things were going pretty well, she was eating, I was taking her in for daily antibiotic injections, when Helen's sister ( a very dumb one) picked Margarita up by her front legs and her stitches popped and part of her intesting popped out.   I am so glad I was there as who knows what they would have done.  I cradled her in my arms and ran, literally into the street, yelling "emergencia" and luckily a tricicle ( our form of transportation) came and rushed us to the verterinario who luckily was there.  He opened her up again, right there in the retail part of his store, put the intestines back in, and sewed her up again, while of course making a few other retail sales while Margarita was passed out on the table. I stood next to her waving the flies off of her while she waited.

So, I brought her home with me and she has been here  since and I plan to keep her until she is out of all danger.  She had not urinated for at least a week ( as far as I knew) but she finally did that on Saturday.  And today, I am sure as a result of Helen's grandmother's prayers, she moved her bowels.  She had shown a good appetite and was drinking and peeing, but I was so worried that she would not be able to move her bowels since they had been outside her body.  But....she pulled thru.

Now, I am feeding her the hidago de pollo and changing her dressing several times a day.  I used the ace bandage from my Peace Corps med kit and the gauze pads to cover the incision and to keep her from licking it.  They don't have those plastic collars and I tried to make one out of a plastic bottle but it does not have the flare and I am afraid she would suffocate.  I put it on her when I am changing the dressing but only for a couple minutes when I can keep an eye on her.     The incision seems to be seeping a lot but I'll watch it for another day or two before I panic about that.   She is supposed to get her stitches out next Thursday so we'll see....

This has been so different from any spay or neuter experience in my long life.  I had no idea it could be so complicated.  You know how we just take our animals in and they get returned to us all cleaned up and done.  Well, its sure different down here.  When I got Margarita back after that first surgery her whole hind quarters had been soaked in blood and her fur was soaked.  Helen's grandmother did give her a little bath before the intestine trauma so at least she is relatively clean.

 I guess I should have asked more questions but I didn't, of course.  But, its all turning out OK.

I have these two kittens who need spayed but I am taking them into Leon for their surgeries.  A friend had her two cats done at a vet there and its a lot more like what we are used to.  At least they keep them overnight for one night and they have a stainless steel table.  I also don't think they need antibiotics for the next whole week to offset the unsanitary conditions of the surgery "suite."

My only other news is that I had Thanksgiving dinner at the home of the Charge D'affairs of the US Embassy here.  We don't have an ambassador...apparently the one Obama appointed was not approved by the Senate...something to do with his history related to Cuba...don't know details.   I have heard that he has apppointed a woman who now will go thru the approval process.  The Charge's home was "lovely" amidst all this poverty.... I just could not do that.....but somebody's got to I guess.

This is Margarita relaxing while she heals.  That ace bandage has slipped a little...its usually a little higher on her body but you get the idea.

Is that a face that could live in the US or what ??????

 I spent some time with his wife while the youngsters enjoyed the pool.  Turns out their daughter is working backstage  ( like a stage manager but she had another name for it) at the National Shakespeare Theater in DC so I told her about my brother's stint at the Folger Theater in DC and one thing led to the next and before you know it, I discovered that the Charge's wife, and her daughter, are HUGE Deep Space Nine fans and were thrilled to be making my acquaintance !!! Small world when you are related to a Klingon !!!!

So, other than bowel movements and hidago de pollo, my life is pretty normal.

I'm going to Costa Rica later this month to visit the family I stayed with about 7 years ago.  I'm taking a picture of Tico with me since that is where he came from.

The Charge D'Affairs is the fellow in the orange shirt.  There were about 18 volunteers there for dinner....he has a large kitchen staff.  They all probably live in homes with dirt floors and share with  2 or 3 generations. 

This is the young lady, Nereyda, who did the Nicaraguan Sign Language video for me.  She has gotten her degree in Environmental Science but she has lots of interests.  She wants to learn English well enough to work in a call center.
Her family is from one of the northern parts of Nicaragua and she is goingthere later this month to help "cut" coffee for them.  She says to do it well is quite a skill and they need her help. 

Love to all,
Pat