Kaiodee - Kait's Blog of Awesome

Guatemala Days 9 & 10

kaiodee — Mon, 01 Mar 2021 19:23:57 +0000

Guatemala Days 9 & 10

kaiodee Mon, 03/01/2021 - 13:23

Guatemala Days 9 & 10

DAY 9

Today, we began with a hearty breakfast and then prepared to head out, thanking our hosts profusely and petting as many of the animals good-bye as would sit still for it. I had a hard time leaving Mina—I doubt she'll survive for me to see again if I go back next year. Still, she was a darn happy dog, so I can't be too sad.

The ride back to Guatemala City was uneventful, (if you can call darting through the sketchy traffic patterns while oogling far-off volcanoes uneventful), and made it to Dr. Dennis's bar unscathed.

Have I mentioned that Dennis has a bar? It's been so long since I updated I honestly can't remember. He got tired of just being a kick-ass vet and decided he needed to start an open-air biker bar next to his little clinic. He makes balloon animals, too. And one of the best margaritas I've ever had. And he's getting his pilot's license. And he was in the military at 11 years old. And he has owns crocodiles. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

We were all happy to get out of the van when we arrived, and even happier to wander around his bar with drink in hand, enjoying the random décor and tiny playground. This consisted of a teeter-totter with no handles and a little ladder to climb up in the tree, which was especially entertaining once the alcohol kicked in. However, the biggest event of the visit was the FOOD.

We watched as Dennis put more and more meat on his massive grill, the only obviously identifiable thing being the entire rabbit on a spit. While we waited, he supplied us chips and homemade spinach dip and a soup that he survived in a tiny cauldron hanging on its own tripod. Then there was grilled french bread. Then there was more alcohol. When we (or at least I) were filling quite satisfied with our lot in life, he started bringing out the actual meal. Beyond the standard piles of meat, my favorite part of the meal was when he stuck pieces of steak all over this mace-looking thing that had been heating up on the grill, poured something flammable on it, and lit it on fire. I'm so sorry I don't have pictures of this yet. I'm working on it.

That day, we ended up trying at least 5 different types of animal: pig, cow, rabbit, frog, and crocodile. My least favorite was the crocodile—it had a LOT of fascia, so it was hard to get to the actual meat. I gather that's a predator thing. After we had gorged ourselves, we went to visit Dennis's clinic next door on the hillside, denoted by a sign that simply stated “VET,” the letters formed out of bleached bone. Going inside, he told us stories of the variety of animals he'd dealt with. As I may have mentioned before, Guatemalan vets don't really specialize—you have to be prepared for anything that walks in the door. Dennis, in particular, has connections to a local zoo/circus/something, so he gets to play with scarier animals than the rest of us might. To deal with this issue, he made his own blow dart gun with which to anesthetize the grumpier, bitier, pointier things. The darts he fashioned out of hypodermic needles, sealing the ends of the needles and putting a tiny hole in the needle a little further down. This hole was covered w/ a rubber washer until the needle entered flesh, at which point it would be shoved down from the hole and the anesthesia could enter the animal. I want a blow dart gun. I can't promise who/what I'll use it on.

Then we went back to the bar, and with very little encouragement from Dennis, went down to meet the pet crocodiles he keeps in the backyard. At one point he asked me if I wanted to hold one, and in my drunken state I didn't hesitate to assure that I did, indeed, wish to cuddle an enormous lizard of death.

So he grabbed it, we lassoed it, and he restrained it as I wrapped duct tape clumsily around its snout. That one might have been named Louise. I can't remember at this point. After I grabbed the crocodile and cheesed for the camera, everybody else secured their gumption and got in line. Most of us had indeed imbibed by that point.

Afterwards, we climbed, giggling, back up the hill to the bar, where Dennis pulled out his karaoke station. Seriously, the day just got better and better. We then proceeded to belt out everything from La Bamba to Bohemian Rhapsody, with musical Spanish interludes from Dennis addressed to one or another of the ladies.

After taking full advantage of every hospitality Dennis felt like supplying, we headed back to the house in San Lucas and prepared ourselves to leave the next day. I haven't slept so well for quite some time.

DAY 10

Today, we went home. I can't lie—I was EXTREMELY excited to be back in my own apartment. If we could have transplanted my apartment to Guatemala, that would have been one thing, but I was in serious need of my own space, especially including the roommate's cat Cricket. We started out the morning with Steve making breakfast, and enjoyed one last meal together before heading back to Guatemala City and the airport. One of the hardest parts was saying good-bye to the animals in the San Lucas house. Mina was my absolute favorite—her tail started wagging the moment she knew you'd noticed her, and she never stopped trying to sneak inside to be closer to us (and whatever armchair she could hop into while we weren't looking).

Danika and I were both chomping at the bit, so the drive to the airport was frustrating—Darvy said that level of traffic congestion was REALLY unexpected, and I pushed my imaginary brake pedal more than once as we fought our way through the hordes of other commuters.

Still, we made it, and survived the airport security and souvenir peddlers to get to our flight. Everything about our travel day was uneventful, except for our lay-over in Houston. If you recall, I had a great deal of luggage trouble on the way out to Guatemala, so I was very prepared to make sure that my luggage actually got to my final destination this time. However, for some reason that's not how things are done when you're coming back INTO the US, and we were required to pick up our luggage and recheck it. My flight was a bit later than everyone else's, so I definitely had more leeway, but I was also switching airlines (mental note: stop planning itineraries with airline switches), so I had to travel quite a ways via a sketchy tram system, stairs, and elevators to get to my last flight. I survived, being the scrappy adult that I am, and made it home safely in time for Danika and her sweet husband to give me a ride with them back to Fort Collins. Stepping into my apartment was...wonderful. Cricket, the roommate's cat, came running and flopped in front of me for his traditional belly rub as if I'd never been gone. However, his degree of cuddliness since I've been back indicates that he did, indeed miss me. David, my roommate, once plaintively mentioned that he was pretty sure Cricket likes me best now. I had to admit that I cheat—I have built-in cat pillows (aka cleavage) and a heated mattress pad.

My hot shower in my own apartment right before getting into my own bed might have been the best one of my life.

Random things:--When you spend over a week immersed in a Spanish-speaking culture, it can be difficult to turn that part of you back off. This can lead to awkward situations. For example, I was going into a bathroom in the Houston airport and passed a small Latina woman coming out. Because I'm a friendly person, I instinctively greeted her, “Hola!” without thinking about the fact that she might be insulted that I assumed she spoke Spanish just by how she looked. To be fair to me, I honestly didn't even notice her appearance when I said it. It was only afterwards that I considered what that might have sounded like. Also, I did the same thing to the Chinese woman at the food stall where I got dinner.

--Even if you expect and prepare for it, the culture shock of coming home can hit you. I only had 3 hectic days to get back into the groove, and yet I was surprised when I had a bit of a crying jag at the end of my first week of school. It affected me that much when I was only gone for 10 days.

Imagine what it would be like if I'd been gone longer...

Of Kitties, Exhaustion, and Medical Errors

kaiodee — Mon, 01 Mar 2021 19:22:35 +0000

Of Kitties, Exhaustion, and Medical Errors

kaiodee Mon, 03/01/2021 - 13:22

Of Kitties, Exhaustion, and Medical Errors

So I posted this on Facebook, but figured I should post it here too so the family can see it. :)

As some of you might know, I've been working to adopt a cat through a classmate, and had very few qualifiers about the kind of cat I wanted. Basically, I wanted it to be old, and I wanted it to be black, as those are two traits that can make it more difficult for a cat to be adopted out.

However, when I went on the website of the place I planned to adopt from, a sweet old marmalade girl caught my eye. And that was okay—she fit 1 out of 2 of my criteria, and I didn't see any cats in the list that looked older. So, I gladly settled on Libby, who was not only adorable but apparently very cuddly. I didn't intend to meet her first—it would take a plane flight to get her to me, and I just decided to fly by the seat of my pants.

Plot Twist 1: Libby is a boy. The shelter only discovered this after doing a physical exam before sending him to me.

Oh, well, that was fine—I really didn't care what sex of cat I got. HE was still old and adorable. I was a humanitarian and deserved ALL the pats on the back.Yesterday, Libby was taken on his flight to Colorado, and I bounced around my room setting up his brand-new litter box, toys, and kitty nest.

Plot Twist 2: His plane was delayed. I would now be required to stay up past 10 pm (Gasp, the humanity!)

Still, I was so darn pumped that that wouldn't be a problem, right? Heh--I practically had to brace my eyelids with my fingers to stay awake. But there was NO way I was missing Mandy's call that she was here with Libby.

Finally, at about midnight-thirty, they arrived. I rushed out of the apartment, completely disregarding the need for pants instead of bike shorts, and went to get my cat. As I walked back to my door holding his carrier, I noticed a weird noise and paused in the quietly falling snow. The silly cat was purring already. I nearly melted right there. I was going to give this old man the best retirement home he could dream of.

Getting him inside, I let him out in my bedroom and he darted out into the space, excited to explore. He was a healthy old man, I gathered. No moss growing on this one. This seemed totally normal at 1 am.

As he dashed around, I quickly glanced at his paperwork, glad to see he'd had some vaccines and testing done, and that he was healthy. He was healthy and...not neutered. Wait...He was healthy, not neutered, and...

Plot Twist 3: 13 WEEKS OLD.I looked at him, and gave a slap-happy giggle. I had adopted a tiny, marmalade kitten. Not an old, black cat.

And then he sat on my chest and purred and nuzzled me, and it turned out he was exactly what I had wanted.

For my veterinary colleagues, you might take note of the application of our Clinical Science tenets in real life. I not only fell into the trap of premature closure (failing to gather all the data because dangit, he LOOKED old!), but also made the mistake of trusting in an illusory transactive memory system (I thought Mandy knew I was after an old fellow, and she thought I knew he was a kitten).

It is not every day that these mistakes will land you with a surprise kitten. Don't follow in my footsteps expecting such a warm, cuddly, and chirpy outcome.

Also, I know this was a doofus mistake. I was just so darn excited.

Hitch Does Surgical Prep

kaiodee — Mon, 01 Mar 2021 19:21:06 +0000

Hitch Does Surgical Prep

kaiodee Mon, 03/01/2021 - 13:21

Hitch Does Surgical Prep

Still working on finishing up my Guatemala blog series (so close!), so I thought I'd share something from professor in my Intro to Surgery class.

For those of you who don't know, the proper preparation for sterile surgery is COMPLICATED, but there are a few aspects that stick out and make a little more sense. For example, after the thorough hand- and forearm-washing process (which can take a whole 10 minutes), you need to keep your washed bits in a square in front of you.

Basically, you hold your arms at a 90 degree angle in front of you, and don't put them outside of a box formed by your hips and shoulders. To make this lesson stick, our professor played this clip for us:

If you didn't catch it, Will Smith is the experienced surgical veterinarian, and the other guy is me at this stage of my education. I may look dorky, but boy I'm excited to learn!

Guatemala: Day 8

kaiodee — Mon, 01 Mar 2021 19:17:35 +0000

Guatemala: Day 8 kaiodee Mon, 03/01/2021 - 13:17

Guatemala: Day 8On our very first day of no work, I woke up at the leisurely hour of 9 to the smell of frying baking and percolating coffee, rolled over my mosquito-free enclosure, and let the sweet calls of tropical birds pull towards wakefulness.Just kidding.I got up at 5:15 am with everybody else so we could go on another adventure. Sans breakfast.Now, if you'll recall my mood of the previous day, you might anticipate that I greeted the idea of another adventure with less than my usual vigor. You would be correct. However, I was drug out of my self-pitying bit of wallow by poor Danika. Unbeknown to me, Danika had spent the night suffering from illness that besets quite a few tourists to Central and South American countries and prudently decided that she would be better off spending the morning in bed. After insisting on grabbing her a meager bottle of water (Danika is seriously one of the least demanding sick people I've ever encountered), I stumbled out of the hut and into the van. Our destination this morning was the swamp.Don't get me wrong—it was a mangrove swamp in Central America, but SWAMP was the only thing sticking out to me. According to family dogma, our last name translates to “living by a water willow grove” (again, swamp), but I've just never felt the ancestral pull towards mosquito-ridden, murky, sludgy water in my blood. I honestly wasn't looking forward to it much, except for the promise of a truly glorious sunrise to be seen. When we arrived, our tour guide/swamp captain ushered us into our own cozy little private boat before pushing off with a pole into the black water. Seriously, I must have been extremely tired to not be more freaked out than I was. One of my top 3 least favorite ways to die is death by association with water I can't see through. And the boat was low. It helped when our guide began giving us the spiel about the number of bird species, weasel species and raccoons that inhabited the swamp, but took another downturn when he mentioned the water snakes (one species of which is several feet long) that also inhabit the area. Sep and I both scooted closer together on our bench—she, brave woman, can't even swim. I promised to save her if the boat (oh, let's be honest, glorified kayak) capsized, provided I didn't die of fear first. Thankfully, my mood lightened with the approach of sunrise, and I began to be able to really enjoy the outing. I'm going to include random mangrove swamp details in the “Random Things” section below, so as not to completely destroy the flow of my narrative style.Anyways, we came for the sunrise but mainly missed it (since it is quite fast) because we were busy being entertained with Danielle's steering efforts.<img src='http://www.kaiodee.com/sites/default/files/1608836_10200573221733576_385309440_n.jpg' width=400px />Not the sunrise, but still an awesome view of swamp and volcanoes in the morning, as well as a boat with some other Americans. Something about Danielle: Only twice during this entire trip did I manage to be slightly more adventurous than she was. I went deeper into the ocean, and I was more enthusiastic about crocodiles (more details in a future blog). Otherwise, Danielle is that person who always gets to do awesome things because she never hesitates to ask for the opportunity. In this case, she convinced the tour guide she should be in charge of the pole for a while. I envy her this outgoing ability, and have definitely added its acquisition to my life goals.As you might have suspected, the tour guide only made steering look easy. What would have been a relatively smooth, short boat ride turned into a much longer one with much more mention of “Shore. Shore approaching. Do you SEE THE SHORE?!?” to the point that Steve mentioned how Gilligan's Island also began with a “three-hour tour” and Darvy began playing the Titanic theme song on his iPhone.<img src='http://www.kaiodee.com/sites/default/files/1608431_10200572992487845_208917314_n.jpg' width=400px />Danielle wasn't very amused by “My Heart Will Go On,” but Darvy and I were, so that's okay.Anyways, we survived the trip and made it back to our starting point, sleepy but happy and ready for breakfast. After breakfast, we all agreed it was naptime, and the rest of the day was taken up with sleep, Nertz, and showers. Then, it was time for one of my favorite parts of the whole, amazing trip. TURTLE TIME.We had dinner at Johnny's Place, and then went about 100 yards down the beach to a turtle conservation site. Basically, the group that runs it will follow female turtle tracks when they come onshore to lay their eggs, and take the eggs back to the secure site before tourists/predators can ruin them. Then, for a small fee they allow tourists to be a part of the baby turtle release at sundown (when it's harder for the predators to see and eat the babies). Turned out one of the guys running the show was none other than our mangrove swamp captain, and because of our volunteer efforts at the spay/neuter clinic allowed us this opportunity for free (although we paid anyway, because who doesn't want to support such a crazy-cool organization?!?). Anyways, they brought out a couple of buckets of 2-hour-old sea turtles and let me tell you, it was one of the cutest things I've ever seen. The turtles apparently know where the ocean is even at that age, and most of them would stay crowded up to the correct edge no matter how the buckets were turned. Drawing a line in the sand, the turtle guys had us stand on one side of it before releasing the turtles, so that we wouldn't accidentally interfere with our progress. Also, we had to start farther away from the waves than I really felt was fair to the tiny things, because apparently that first struggle across the sand imprints the beach on them. This means that when the females are grown, they will come back to this beach to lay their own clutches of eggs, supporting the conservation effort. Isn't that just cool?Anyways, I thought we'd each get to release maybe one baby turtle, but when the time came it was basically a case of putting little turtles on the sand as quickly as possible and then cheering them on as they flippered towards the water. As I mentioned before, the waves on this beach were quite strong, and it was extremely entertaining in an “Oh, you poor little dears” kind of way to watch the waves flip the babies on their backs, leaving tens of little flippers flapping frantically in the surf before they righted themselves and carried on. After about 20 minutes of progress, we watched the last baby disappear into the ocean, for what I've assured my inner 5 year old will be a long and healthy life with plenty of algae to go around.<img src='http://www.kaiodee.com/sites/default/files/69047_10202429984607673_1125441164_n.jpg' width=400px /><img src='http://www.kaiodee.com/sites/default/files/1525354_10202429982847629_138724722_n.jpg' width=400px />Baby TURTLEs!!! Consider my bucket list shortened.After the turtles were gone, a wise and enterprising young man with a tray attached to a bicycle came up to us to sell his wares—little turtle scenes made out of local seeds and shells. Let's just say I was an easy mark for that one. It's no wonder he came straight to me.Afterwards, Dr. Diego randomly showed up with another young doctor living in the area, Carmen, and we all went to have drinks at Johnny's Place before Steve and I walked home along the beach (as we were both quite tired). Oh, and Danika did manage to drag herself out of bed to come see the turtles with us. I'm pretty sure she'd have done that no matter how poorly she felt.Random Things:--So, mangrove swamps are freakin' fascinating. They've adapted to live in this watery environment of wide-ranging salinity concentrations, and for a lot of the mangroves their roots actually start high up in the trees and trail into the water.<img src='http://www.kaiodee.com/sites/default/files/th.jpg' width=400px />Not a picture from our trip, but still a good example.--Also, the number of herons and kingfishers we got to see was just beautiful. My favorite creature of the swamp, however, was the four-eyed fish.<img src='http://www.kaiodee.com/sites/default/files/1.jpg' width=400px />Apparently, one set of eyes is to watch for predators above, while the other is to watch for prey below. Random picture from Google, but you get the idea.These guys, if startled, would get up a good running start and then jump out of the water to bounce along like they were a rock someone had skipped. We'd see whole schools of them, just little heads half-sticking out of the water, turn into these bouncing little fishy projectiles at the smallest provocation. I could have watched them all day. --Another thing we saw a lot of were shrimp- and fish-catching locals. Apparently the shrimp are particularly abundant in these mangrove swamps and have adapted their breeding and egg-laying habits to coincide with the seasonal salinity that best suits them. One man we saw used shrimp as bait to catch fish and, I kid you not, he caught another fish approximately every 15 seconds. Shrimp on hook, drop hook in water for 2 seconds, pull out a fish, remove fish into bucket, and repeat. I'm pretty sure if fishing were always that easy and someone would clean and cook them for me, I could actually get into fishing to.--At one point during the swamp trip, I heard Darvy insert the word “anaconda” into the Spanish conversation he was having with our tour guide. Apparently the look I turned around and gave him was priceless, as he had to stop laughing before explaining to me that he hadn't been discussing actual anacondas in this swamp. If looks could kill...--I would not want to visit Guatemala without a local driver to escort me around. Some of the situations that Darvy calmly guided the van through made me close my eyes and squeeze the arm rest. In one of the poorer villages, Darvy actually hesitated before plunging down the hill to the clinic, and I was fairly convinced we'd never make it out alive.--A lot of the cattle I saw in Guatemala were of the Brahma variety, especially in the swamp. Some cowherds move their cattle onto apparently stable land in the swamp to find the best grazing land.--Also, there were a ton of iguanas. They liked to lay out in the sun on the tops of walls, and would lay very still until they sensed you had a camera out. We had a remarkably difficult time getting a good picture of one.<img src='http://www.kaiodee.com/sites/default/files/1560577_10202429949806803_348987304_n.jpg' width=400px />Can you even see it? In the shade there?--When you do as many spays and neuters as we had done that week, you often find yourself in a rather peculiar mindset. There were loads of free-ranging dogs in the Guatemalan communities we visited, and although we still cooed at them first, our next action tended to be to look for testicles, just in case we needed to stop and take those off. No, we didn't just steal random dogs for neuter by force, but it wasn't for lack of speculation. We were always especially happy in the clinics when we were asked to neuter a male who'd previously been used for breeding. Females can produce a good number of puppies a year, but that's nothing compared to how many a male can sire.--During this trip, I repeatedly caught myself thinking that I wouldn't be able to interact with the animals as easily as I could in the U.S. because they wouldn't speak fluent English. Turns out belly rubs are universal.

Guatemala: Day 7

kaiodee — Mon, 01 Mar 2021 19:15:37 +0000

Guatemala: Day 7 kaiodee Mon, 03/01/2021 - 13:15

IMPT NOTE: If anyone from my trip reads this all the way through, I really hope you got my message that it was AWESOME and I regret NOTHING and I certainly don't blame anyone for my bad moods or behavior. The following blog is explanatory, not accusatory.Our second work day in Monterrico went very similarly to our first, except for the fact that by this point in the trip, homesickness and an introverted need to be in MY SPACE ALONE for a decent span of time was beginning to notably affect me. I think, really, that these feelings were the basis for any negativity I felt over the next few days, which was considerable. Don't get me wrong—I wouldn't take back a single day of my trip. I merely mention this mental situation at the start to make some of the following events easier to understand.First of all, I don't take well to people snapping at me on the best of days. I compare it to angry traffic, in my head. If somebody honks at me, my immediate reaction is a deep-seated, gut-clenching wrath, absolutely regardless of what caused the honking in the first place. EVEN IF the honking was entirely justified because I was being a dipwad on the road. Having finally understood this about myself, it's become much easier to take a few deep breaths and let it go. The same goes with people snapping at me—my first knee-jerk desire is to start a fight worthy of the trashiest of trailer parks, but I do my absolute best to hold back the crazy and instead consider why that person snapped at me. Was it my fault? If so, was snapping really necessary? If not, what could have contributed to this person's behavior? Is this a habitual behavior? If not, let's try to be the bigger person and just make the situation better. Someday, someone will do the same for me when I do something less than polite.If I have time to come to terms with that, and especially if the other person self-reflects enough to apologize, back up, and correct me in a more constructive way, this system works well for me. If not, say for example in a high-stress veterinary situation with very spare hands and very little spare time, it can eat at me a bit. Because, let's not forget, under the anger is the guilt that I messed up. I HATE making mistakes. I know it would be healthier to be positive about it, and maybe I'll get there someday, but for now I've just gotta slog through these situations. Anyways, there had been a few instances over the past few days when I'd been snapped at (although I doubt it was nearly as harsh as it seemed in my exhausted, overwhelmed state), and I didn't have my own little section of time and space in which to come to terms with it. This put me on edge, and though the last day was relatively easy AND fascinating (since we could take more time for teaching/learning sessions with a less stressful workload), I seemed to notice every little interaction that could be considered even slightly negative. The solution, for me, was easy—I needed a break in private. When you're living in eachother's hip pockets, that is easier said than done. Still, I bided my time with as much patience as I had left, and planned to go on a long walk on the beach by myself when we got back. Unfortunately, this was delayed when Danielle's expensive phone was missing after we'd packed everything else. We all dove into searching for it extensively, but after a while we had to give up and head back to the hotel. While Danielle called her service provider, we dug through the garbage of the day (much like breakfast, veterinary trash is much less fun the second time around) but came up empty-handed. Thankfully, when you put a lot of smart people together, they get creative, and after calling every client whose information we had, Sep located a man who “might” have seen the phone...for a price. Basically, this guy had wandered into our clinic, snatched the phone, and wandered out again claiming that he needed to charge “his” phone at his house. I feel like it might have been smarter of him to not actually mention the phone to us at all, but he did, and off Danielle and Co. went to buy it back from him (for about 200 quetzales~$25). Knowing I wouldn't be very useful, I decided to go on my beach walk, having ascertained that it was safe to wander alone in this part of the beach and after notifying Danika of where I was going. What I didn't mention was that I planned to walk for 1 hour and 20 minutes on the dot. For those of you who don't know me, exercising compulsively is something I've had a problem with since high school. I've improved a great deal, and had done very well with being a strange country with a new schedule and very little privacy/time to complete my habitual activities, but I was just at the end of my rope that day. Plus, I didn't want anyone judging the specificity of my needs—it's embarrassing, sometimes. Turns out I could have just been upfront, though—Steve's idea of a good walk is, like, and hour and a half, so my behavior wouldn't have been considered abnormal by this group. Still, I didn't figure I was doing anything inappropriate. Who knew how long the other group would be gone for the phone, anyways? I knew when dinner was schedule and would be back before then. Setting off, I enjoyed myself tremendously, walking in the edge of the water so that the occasional larger wave caught me by surprise. The walk back after 40 minutes was even prettier as I faced the setting sun. However, as I frequently do, I had overestimated how long the sun would stay up. The sun drops FAST at that latitude, and when I was about 20 minutes back to the hotel was nearly below the horizon. At that point, it occurred to me that I probably should have been more specific about how long I would be gone. Still, I was 24, on a “safe” beach, and had not exactly sneaked out of the area. The others might be a little worried, but I'd be back soon and it would be okay. There was still enough light to see far down the beach when I noticed a couple of people walking, then running, towards. Danielle and Dennys appeared out of the darkness, with Dennys smiling in relief and Danielle smiling in worry. My original intention had been to apologize and explain why I was so late, but Danielle's obvious worry/anger when she greeted me struck just the wrong note with me. I was tired and crowded and stressed and TIRED and I was an adult and I'd put up with enough the last few days (note: my brain was definitely exaggerating by that point) and I'd be DAMNED if I'd apologize when I hadn't done anything wrong. The strained silence on the way back to the hotel was extremely uncomfortable, especially when I was doing my best not to be grateful that I didn't actually have to try and find the hotel in the dark by myself. I had not realized how similar everything looked in the dark. Getting back to my room, I quickly changed into clothes more suited to dinner and joined the group out to the van. No one glared at me, so I may have even underestimated how mad some people were about my behavior. A guilt/anger/guilt parfait is an unpleasant dessert, people. Still, I was rather determined to not be as open and friendly as I had been before—when I do that and something unpleasant happens (even if not as a direct result), my favorite response is to shut it down—I do tend to over-share. Anyways, we went to dinner at another restaurant that hosted us, and then went and got drinks at Johnny's Place, the local tourist hot-spot hotel. Though I didn't realize it at the time, one of the workers who greeted us there was the exact same man who'd stolen Danielle's phone, and apparently he apologized very vaguely. He had, after all, managed to jack up her phone case with a screwdriver and erase many hundreds of photos in the short time he had it. More happily, we also found that one of the bartenders was William, our wonderful assistant at the clinic. We had a pleasant couple of hours drinking alcoholic smoothies while Dennys tried to get us drunk before we headed back to go to bed—we had early morning plans the next day, and some of us (me especially) were already crabby that we'd stayed out so late in the first place. As I mentioned before, I wasn't exactly feeling reasonable.And THAT'S when people started to get sick. It hit Danielle first, but Danika got hit the hardest. I don't know what happened to them, because I never got sick while still eating/drinking the same things they did. However, I did manage to be nearly maimed by voracious mosquitoes (Exaggeration? Maybe.) so we all got to suffer some.Random details:--It was either this day or the day before during which we truly began to understand how awesome Dennys the Menace, and he earned our private nickname of “Dr. One-Up.” However, that has a negative connotation, and one of the coolest things about Dennys is that he's just super-awesome without even trying. For example, during a downtime at the clinic he randomly pulls some balloons and a balloon pump out of his pocket and starts making balloon animals. Big deal, right? I can make balloon animals—my snakes kick ass. Dennys, however, made a dragonfly. Then, we found out he wasn't sufficiently entertained at his vet clinic, where he treats everything from dogs and cats to local circus tigers and lions (which he tranquilizes with a home-made blowdart gun), so he opened up a biker bar right next door. Oh, and he'll get his pilot's license before the year is out. And he joined the military at the age of 11, due to the 36-year-long civil war in Guatemala that ended in 1996. There came a point where we actually stopped being surprised. Until we were again. I think I met the Guatemalan version of The Most Interesting Man In The World.--We didn't go into the ocean again during the trip (due to a combination of illnesses and exhaustion), so I feel it is safe to divulge what I learned after arriving back home a few days ago. Danika's great-grandmother is Guatemalan, and expressed a great deal of surprise when she heard that we'd been swimming at that beach. Although we saw no direct evidence of this, she claims that it's not safe there with the water so warm...because the sharks love it. I am damn tired of accidentally swimming with toothy things, people. And frankly, I have no faith in people saying not to worry, because this or that horrid beasty doesn't come to this or that area. Oh, yeah? Did you sit down and have a cordial meeting with the man-eating monsters about their probable itinerary? I imagine it going like this:--“Tea, Mr. Shark?”--“Why yes, thank you—I'll take a cube of sugar and just a dash of the blood of infants.”--“So, as you know, we've called you here today to discuss beach-front development. You've been here for a while, so we're willing to offer a generous amount of money if you'd like to relocate to a new settlement, at which we will supply all the squishy, warm mammal flesh you could desire, as long as you don't eat people.” “Well that's bloody good of you, sir! I've been meaning to travel more!”*A short time later, a human named Kaitlin is eaten in the “safe zone” --“Now listen here, Mr. Shark, this simply isn't done. We can't have you going about and devouring tourists who might buy things! Was our monetary gift not sufficient?” “Oh, no, good chap, not at all! The problem, you see, is that I am a fierce killing machine who doesn't actually understand English, and have no respect at all for your puny imaginary boundaries. If I'm hungry enough, I'll eat anything I damn well please, and if I, say, have some sort of genetic defect, I could easily turn up somewhere completely unexpected, and behave in terrifying ways! Ever heard of the lions of Tsavo?”And then the shark eats that guy, too, and all is violent chaos. Don't get me wrong, though—I think sharks are as cool as anything, and I would never go around killing them just because they scare the EVERYTHING out of me. I simply don't wish to swim with one, and apparently that means I'll have to rely on common sense instead of others' advice. --My immediate reaction to the guy selling Danielle her stolen phone back was to beat the snot out of him instead and take the phone back for free. However, Steve had an interesting viewpoint that is easy to forget: when you're poor, and possibly have mouths to feed other than your own, stealing is a different thing than it is for me. I see it as an extreme affront—that guy probably saw doctors and assumed it would make little difference to us, money-wise. Or, maybe he didn't care. Either way, appealing to the guy's sense of shame would have probably been useless. A sense of shame is something of a luxury, I'm beginning to think.

Guatemala: Day 6

kaiodee — Mon, 01 Mar 2021 19:11:44 +0000

Guatemala: Day 6 kaiodee Mon, 03/01/2021 - 13:11

Guatemala: Day 6 Waking up at 6:30 am on the beach was much nicer than waking up at 6:30 am pretty much anywhere else, except for the fact that it got COLD during the night. Hurriedly shoving my hair into a ponytail and pulling on clothes that hadn't actually been washed for longer than I cared to remember (I always seemed to be too tired to care about personal hygiene that would be demolished during the day), I stumbled out into the sunlight in search of hot coffee. Having secured that, I was treated to the hospitality that I'd experienced everywhere else on the trip thus far—Fulvio and Graciella brought us our food steaming hot and hovered over us throughout our typical Guatemalan breakfast of eggs, salsa, beans and bread in case we could possibly desire anything else. It made my inner-Dozier/Elmore cringe, since I'm pretty sure I'm NEVER supposed to eat until I've urged the cook to sit down and do likewise, but it was wonderful and clearly expected from us to enjoy our meals heartily. The pounding waves that had lulled me to sleep washed the beach nearby, and I suddenly felt like I wasn't on a work-trip at all. I had instead somehow stumbled into some far richer person's island vacation, and it...was...good.At about 7:30, we piled into the van that basically felt like home and trundled 5 minutes away to “downtown” Monterrico to set up shop in the local doctor's office. Dr. Diego, a man completing his 6-year Guatemalan program with his required 6 months of community service, had kindly lent us his office space for our operations. Oh, and a Guatemalan vet, Dr. Dennys “the Menace,” (as he liked to call himself) had come with us from the bed & breakfast to help out for the 2 days we would be on the coast.As with most of our previous work, this day again felt like a step-up luxury-wise. We again had electricity and running water, and we also had Dr. Diego to lend us things, Dr. Dennys to be awesome, and William (an assistant at the office) to help clean and hold dogs. It was definitely the most hygienic clinic we'd worked in, and the people had far less of that nervous, shifty look about them. Still, as on the other days, I worked hard to keep a warm, confident smile plastered on my face while meeting the eyes of the random Guatemalan citizens, especially if they were looking in at us while we cut into their animals. So, we set up Sep as the intake and recovery station on the front porch, while Danika and I worked hard to prepare animals as quickly as possible for the apparently tireless Drs. Dennys and Kristie. I finally transferred the chore list and surgery diagram from my arm to a piece of paper on the wall, and it appeared to benefit everyone, not just me. Danielle was off surgery (which she definitely preferred) and on to anesthesia, general coordination, and interaction with clients, which is where she thrives. However, when I brought in the first dog to Dr. Dennys' table, I was surprised when asked me if I would assist. Making it clear to him that I had very little experience in this area, I spent about 5 minutes looking like an idiot while struggling into sterile gloves, and then off we went. Thankfully, his English was far better than my Spanish, and he gave me a detailed blow-by-blow account of everything he did. When he was done, I felt a lot smarter and also very relieved that I hadn't had to actually do anything I could screw up. But then, I brought in the next dog, and he motioned that I could assist again. To my surprise, he started having me apply hemostats here and there, cut things, and even at one point stitch closed a section of body wall. I was extremely proud of myself for not panicking, and although I made small mistakes, I never did anything permanently damaging. Dr. Diego, the human doctor, then got into the game by asking to “assist” Kristie in one of her procedures. This was slightly entertaining to me, as Kristie not only knows very little Spanish but also never works with an assistant. Thankfully, Diego knew a lot of English, and to her credit Kristie is an extremely patient and flexible teacher. We even let him do a subcutaneous vaccine injection before everything was done, since he was so fascinated with the correlations between our work and his. Anyways, that first day was delightfully calm—Dr. Dennys was so fast that between the 2 surgeons, we got about the average number of dogs done in ¾ of the time. By about 3:00 pm, we ran out of dogs to do, and were able to close up shop. This was especially delightful in that we could actually leave our equipment in the office overnight. Usually, we had to finish an exhausting day and THEN pack up every little bit and piece before hauling our tired selves home, but this building was secure. After attempting to use the local “internet cafe,” which kicked me off right in the middle of the only e-mail I wanted to send (I did try to keep up communication, Mom! :) ), we drove home in an extremely sweaty, sticky, and dirty state to pull on swimsuits. Danika and I couldn't wait for everyone else to hurry up, so we dashed across the rough black sand beach ourselves and into the ocean. It had been a while since I'd been on a beach, and I'd forgotten just how breath-taking the ocean is. I literally had to stop for a second before going further, just to take it all in. Mountains are impressive, but mountains don't usually visibly move. The ocean is like some huge, living monster, and every rolling wave looks like the smooth back of something coming for me. Despite that, I wasn't afraid. I was definitely too insignificant for the monster to take notice of me, and it would only kill me if I didn't take it seriously. Once everyone else arrived, Dr. Dennys and I were definitely the ones who swam farthest out. For those of you who know my deep and panic-filled fear of dark water, this might be surprising to you. Frankly, I worked very hard at just not thinking about my fear so that I could fully enjoy the moment. And enjoy it I did—the waves were strong enough that I could body surf in towards the shore if I was careful, or be tumbled in along the sand if I wasn't. I got some decent scrapes out of that, because once I lost my footing there wasn't much I could do until it let me go. Bracing myself against the undertow was another thing entirely—my calves burned the next day, just from resisting a wave that was little taller than my ankles. The ocean was STRONG on this section of the pacific coast. Though Dennys and I went out farthest, we still only went out about 30 feet. Any farther would have been quite dangerous. We stayed on the beach long enough to watch the sunset, and it was just another layer of amazing on top of everything else we'd experienced. <img src='http://www.kaiodee.com/sites/default/files/1555365_10202429937686500_1974310034_n.jpg' width=400px />Then we stumbled back to the B&B to wash off sand in the outdoor showers (who knows how many pounds worth) before dumping a similar amount in our personal showers. I have no idea where all that extra sand was hiding. I'm not even sure I WANT to know. Then, we headed out to a local restaurant that was feeding us as part of this vet-support program. They started us off with a traditional drink made from hibiscus called hay-mike-uh (obviously I don't know how to actually spell) that I'm quite fond of, and then fed us a meal I definitely wouldn't be able to afford in the US, which included a stick of what looked like orange spaghetti. Interestingly enough, that's basically what it turned out to be, although apparently it had also been caramelized and fried in oil. It was good, even if it felt like the cook had accidentally spilled raw pasta onto my plate. The only downside of the day was that I felt like I was being EATEN ALIVE by mosquitoes, while nobody else was having a big problem. By the time our waiter brought out some citronella candles, I was miserable. I commandeered one of them to set nearly under my chair, and then proceeded to burn myself on it, but at that point focusing on the burn was far more fun than focusing on my rapidly swelling welts. If I do this again next year, you can bet your ass I'm bringing a ton of bug spray and itch sticks. Guatemalan meals last so long that I eventually took a butter knife to my itches, and let us just be grateful I didn't have anything sharper. Morbid, I know, but when I'm tired, sweaty, and unbelievably itchy, I have no self-control left and basically need a cone of shame for each of my appendages to stop myself from minor self-mutilation. Sleeping was also rough, and I'm not very good at trapping the mosquitoes OUTSIDE of the mosquito netting. Still, the whole thing was just awesome. Random things:--On what I believe was our first day of work, in Santa Marta, a Guatemalan veterinary student named Pamila helped us out. She didn't speak any English, but we both got really good at charades, and she was an absolute sweet heart. Quick note on how the Guatemalan veterinary program works—Pamila was in her 5th year of a 6 year program, but that includes any education we would have called “undergraduate.” The tuition is only about $70 a year, but the students are required to buy lots of things like textbooks and note packets and tools all on their own, as government loans aren't really available. The attrition rate is apparently about 95%, as only those with decent income can finish the program and there are very few, tiny breaks in the difficult curriculum. It is NOTHING as easy as ours, apparently. Way to make me feel like a slacker, Guatemala.--A recurring thing on this trip were verbal quizzes. Danielle wasn't great at talking while performing surgery, but Kristie thrived on it. Danika, being a year farther along in the vet program than I am, was able to answer far more of the questions, but after a while I grew confident to at least take my time to answer. And though it was extremely stressful, the quizzing was one of the most beneficial parts of the trip. I learned A LOT, especially of the things we won't get out of textbooks, and Kristie never failed to explain the logic behind why we did things certain ways. That's definitely my learning style.--I did so many subcutaneous injections on this trip that I actually feel very confident in my technique. Same goes for listening to heart and lung sounds—I became so habituated to the sound of a dog's heartbeat that I heard both a sinus arrhythmia and the reflex bradycardia caused by Dexmedetomidine, although both of these things are normal and I was worried something was wrong. Just getting this repetitive experience was worth the trip. --Hardly any of the dogs had bad drug trips the first day in Monterrico, no idea why. All I can say is it was a welcome relief. Nothing like a screaming dog to up the tension. We did, however, have dogs that freaked out simply from being held by us, and I was given a sharp reminder of being careful with where I put my face. We failed to muzzle one of them, and her attempt to bite me ended up with a long, painful scratch down my cheek. I'm just grateful that this reminder wasn't any more detrimental—a little pain with no scars is definitely one of the most effective ways to relearn a lesson.--Don't know if I've mentioned this before, but many of the dogs we saw had either never been on a leash, never been handled by someone outside of their close, immediate family, and/or had never been inside a building. This went double for the more impoverished communities we visited, and definitely added to the stress of the thing.--Playing Nertz by the ocean is almost as good as playing it at home with my family. Almost.--I used to see heart-warming pictures of people in impoverished situations performing selfless acts for animals and think that that had to be rare. This wasn't a criticism of poor people--I really just figured that if you're busy figuring out how to feed yourself, you can't spend all that much time worrying about anyone else. Survival mode kicks in. However, while in Guatemala I came to find that I was wrong. This love of animals that I have is a widespread thing, transcending all sorts of difficult boundaries. Does everyone care about the animals around them, or see them as something more than just a product to be utilized? No, but there are examples of the exact opposite at every social and economical level.

Guatemala: Day 5

kaiodee — Mon, 01 Mar 2021 19:09:24 +0000

Guatemala: Day 5 kaiodee Mon, 03/01/2021 - 13:09

I took too long to keep up with blog (with good reason, as you will see!), which means I can no longer describe every single detail of my day. Sorry, guys—I know how riveting my breakfasts are. Today we went to Chimaltenango, which basically means “City of Chemal,” but I didn't see a single Chimal anywhere. (Problem: I'm not sure Chimals are a real thing). The year before, hardly anyone had shown up for this clinic day with their pets, so we were rather surprised to find 5-10 dogs already waiting with their owners when we arrived. It was extra shocking to find both running water and electricity at the community center that would be our base for the day, plus a whole bundle of volunteers from the local shelter! These, however, were modern Guatemalans—they dressed and ate like we did, for the most part, and some of them knew at least conversational English. And once you get out of the Guatemalan boonies, EVERYONE has a stinking phone. I've never been a part of so many selfies in one day (Grandma: Selfies are when people take pictures of themselves. It's extremely narcissistic and extremely addictive). Anyways, for once in our trip we had everything we needed but sufficient tables (despite the 3 tables we brought with us, which often doubled as surgery tables). With my less-than-perfect Spanish, I helped assign different volunteers to different tasks. They were all very willing to help and correct my Spanish (occasionally in a rather condescending manner until it became clear how poor their English was), and by the end of the day we'd all formed the bonds that stressful situations can cause, despite the language barrier. Anyways, we worked steadily throughout the day expecting to finish our work at a reasonable time, but the dogs just kept pouring in. Probably a couple of cats, too, but those were honestly rather rare. After I messed up several times on several things (particularly in lint-rolling the dogs after shaving, which gets rid of those pesky hairs you can't brush off with your hands), I wrote a to-do list for setting up each new patient on my forearm. I got those things down, but then I couldn't remember which side of the table each surgeon wished to work on—this seriously affected their ability to perform their habitual surgery and catch the light from the windows at the same time. We might have actually had lights for once, but they weren't sufficient for this kind of work—I've never been quite so aware of the sun before. Anyways, I then drew a diagram on my arm to remember how to position the animals, and finally managed to get into something of a rhythm. By 5 p.m., we all had a solid system down, but at that point we were exhausted and still had quite a few dogs to do. However, some of the drugs we used caused dogs to have hallucinations when they were waking up. That was a whole other challenge of this rural veterinary work—we only had injectable anesthetics (as opposed to an injectable/gas combination), and there's a reason that we use more complicated things in the U.S. This wasn't the first day dogs had gone through a bad trip coming out of ketamine-induced anesthesia, but it was the first day I really felt confident in dealing with the freak-out—the dogs scream, their dilated eyes twitch randomly, and they occasionally like to bolt headlong from our recovery area (which was just a corner of the room layered in newspaper.) It was especially difficult to explain to the owners what was happening with my mainly-conversational Spanish. I got really good at saying that a dog was only asustada (scared), no se duele (not hurting), and that they were having pesadillas (nightmares). I also got really good at calming the dogs. This basically consisted of keeping my hands over their eyes and ears and bear-hugging them until they calmed down enough to let a second dose of nicer drugs take effect, as ketamine makes you very susceptible to any sort of external stimulation. As I mentioned, we had a limited supply of drugs, but after several days we worked out a method of giving the nicer drugs intravascularly, intramuscularly, and subcutaneously in order to draw out the time they would work, so that the ketamine could eliminate itself without anymore panic attacks. We worked from 8:30 am to about 8:30 pm, and I didn't sit down once except in the bathroom. By the time 8 pm rolled around, we were bone-tired and starving, when one of the dogs started to have a drug reaction. Self-appointing myself as the druggy dog-calmer, I'd checked on this girl a few times, but eventually I had to wrap myself around her to give her any sort of peace. The worried owner sat near me, trying to stay out of the bodily mess that dogs tend to make when blitzed out of their minds, while I tried to calm her and practiced on my Spanish. I think we ended up having to hit that dog 3 more times with drugs before it worked, so I stayed hunched around her for who knows how long, trying to move occasionally but mainly just letting things fall asleep so she'd stay still with her new stitches. I'm not ashamed to say that I did a really good job with this, but the most important part for me was realizing how much I get out of dealing with these stressful situations. I kind of thrive on it. If I had to spend the rest of my veterinary career dealing with simple cases, I think I'd be bored directly to death. And the gratitude on the owner's face, when I expected her to lash out at us for what we'd done to her dog (these reactions happen on occasion, but certainly aren't common, and she watched many other dogs leave happily), made all the aches and hunger and anal gland secretions covering me worth it. I was glad to have been there, and suddenly I didn't hurt anymore. All of the people who'd worked with us, and many of the people whose dogs we had worked on, thanked us so many times our heads spun. For some reason, having a grown man thank me that much in Spanish made me tear up a little. I'm going to blame that on the exhaustion.Standing around a dirty table in the dark, I don't think pizza ever tasted better.In the end, we spayed/neutered about 41 animals that day, but at 8:30 we still had a head of us the 2.5-hour car ride to Monterrico on the coast, our next clinic destination. If I never try to sleep in the back of a van with no shocks again, careening down a mountainside over what must have been a billion speed bumps, it will be far too soon. And yet, it was STILL cool. At once point, the girls in front woke us to look out in the darkness at a tiny speck of lava we could see on a volcano off in the distance. Darvy (our Guatemalan van driver, tour guide, landlord, and all around awesome guy) says that if we return, we can arrange a hike up to look into one of the local volcanoes, which is now a personal goal. I made a lot of new personal goals this trip, and fulfilled goals I didn't really know I had. Anyways, we finally got to our little hotel, Dulce y Salado, in Monterrico. We stayed for free because the Italian owners, Fulvio and Graciella, support our work here. They also cooked us breakfast, and a couple of local restaurants fed us dinner at night during our stay as part of the same program. The appreciation for our work was kind of unexpected, on my part.Anyway, our rooms were awesome. The hotel had maybe 8 rooms, which were basically these little huts situated around a pool. Each bed had mosquito netting to protect us, and our breakfast was no more than 100 yards from the waves. I tell you what, it's more fun waking up in the morning to drink coffee by the ocean. However, we would only have seen our feet that first night as we stumbled towards our rooms if we hadn't been able to hear the ocean. Danika and I dragged ourselves the short distance to see the waves in the moonlight, and thought it a day well done. Random things:--Not sure if I ever actually described MY part in this trip, as I'm not a veterinarian yet and can't perform surgery. Basically, I did everything BUT surgery. I anesthetized, shaved, and scrubbed dogs for surgeries, I checked heart and lung sounds for safety, I scrubbed tables and instruments, I disposed of the random testicle that stuck someone's sterile glove, I held lights, I carried dogs back to Guatemalan huts, I fetched water, I...good gravy, I did a lot. I never went to bed with energy to spare. I also continuously fielded questions of a technical veterinary nature, which was fascinating and extremely educational for me but probably won't interest everyone else all that much. Suffice to say, I know A LOT more practical things now. --There are, I think, 34 volcanoes in Guatemala. Guatemala is the size of Tennessee. By the time we got back to San Lucas, I was like “Oh, a volcano. Cool...”--I want to look up the statistics for coconut-related deaths in Guatemala. There were palm trees everywhere, and I'm pretty sure getting hit in the head by a falling coconut could kill you. Still, the people did not appear to fear the trees as I did. Perhaps they are better at dodging than I am. --This day was also our last day with Ligia, Darvy's sister and burgeoning veterinarian. She's already in school as I write this, and has 6 long years with very few, tiny breaks ahead of her. However, she's going to be amazing. She's going into this with so much experience already, and she honestly just has that certain something that I've felt with other amazing vets. She has the dedication, while she also has the ability to not be crushed by the sadness we see. I am honored to call her a colleague even now as a student—she certainly knows a hell of a lot more than I do.--Telling the difference between Spanish words I don't know and Spanish names that people introduce themselves with can be very difficult. I said “mas despacio?” (more slowly?) more times than I can count.--On our first night in Dulce y Salado, we saw an enormous toad in one of the foot baths that surround the pool (for washing off the black sand). It was actually the first time some of our Guatemalan friends had seen one. --Did I mention that I got to barter for the first time in the Antigua marketplace? Did I even mention we visited Antigua's downtown area? We did, and spent some time in the local artisans market. One of the coolest parts about it was the amount of jade being sold. Antigua, or maybe Guatemala itself, is the world's jade center (according to somebody—I'll need to verify that). Anyways, I wanted to buy a painting for my apartment in Colorado, and managed to get the seller down by 60 quetzales (which is a little more than $7) on a 185 quetzal painting. I felt like a bad-ass, especially because I was supposed to let Sep, one of our Guatemalan friends, barter for me. She said she probably couldn't have gotten it any lower. --Dealing with salespeople in Guatemala is similar to dealing with them in Mexico, or frankly anywhere with the barter mentality. If they catch your eye, you're going to have to do a lot of “no, gracias” to escape. I bought a few beaded quetzals (the national bird of Guatemala, as well as the currency) from a salesman walking around outside of the airport this morning, and had a hell of a time getting my change. Every time his hand went towards his money bag, he'd switch direction and grab something else “mas differente” for me to look at. I had only meant to buy 1 quetzal originally, so I felt compelled to tell him that he was very good at his job. It was most entertaining because we both knew what was going on, and it was fine as long as I wasn't feeling swayable. Once I escaped from him with my change, I made the mistake of exchanging some of my remaining quetzales (the money kind) with Danielle for American dollars, as she will be staying longer in the country. The man immediately jumped back to me with “You have more money?!? “ At that point, I fled.

Guatemala: Day 4

kaiodee — Mon, 01 Mar 2021 19:07:28 +0000

Guatemala: Day 4 kaiodee Mon, 03/01/2021 - 13:07

'Today we began with a meal that while delicious, did not severely challenge my sense of comfort--pancakes! Also, each meal has been accompanied by a fresh mystery juice. I call it a "mystery" because I don't ask what it is before I taste it, to see if I can guess. Today was papaya, and each different juice has been delicious. Ooh, something I forgot to talk about yesterday--remember the crazy lady? In order to not be attacked by the machete that she famously wields, Darby enlisted a couple of kind village women to help as negotiators when he went to speak with her. They liked us so much that the next day in Yalu they invited us to have lunch at this well-kept institution up the hill where they take care of the local children (as far as I can tell). The fascinating part about this is to consider what an honor it was--with such sparse technology, especially for travel or communication, these villages are extremely isolated places. In those situations, there is a definite, palpable sense of strong, defensive community, especially directed against foreigners. And still, they invited us to eat their food amongst their children, one of whom was brave enough to come over like he owned our table and wondered what we were doing sitting at it. His name was Brandon, and some sort of mental or physical issue made his smile one of the sweetest and most crooked I've seen. Steve, who is extremely fond of children but knows no Spanish, grabbed him at one point to pull him in for a picture-taking opportunity. Brandon's eyes went huge, and a woman cleaning nearby froze, staring hard at Steve to see what he would do next.However, as it became clear that Steve meant no harm, both people relaxed, and a small crisis was averted. Though we were invited, people always watched us out of the corners of their eyes, in both fear and trepidation. When we finished eating, we thanked the village ladies profusely, and Brandon proudly led us from the building, rushing ahead to open doors and then leading us through his world. As we left the grounds, one of the children tentatively called out "How...are you?" I think it must have been the only English they knew, but Steve delightedly stopped and continued to have a conversation with them, although neither side knew what the other was saying. That's a good representation of Steve, though--friendliest guy I've met for a while, and willing to roll with every little adventure.Anyway, our surgery site today was at Animals A.W.A.R.E., an animal shelter begun by an American named Anita and her husband Martin. According to Emily, another American employee, with 300 dogs and 65 cats Animals A.W.A.R.E. is the largest legitimate shelter in Central America. Knowing that, it is stunning to learn that there are only 4 permanent employees. They clean each cage every day, walk every dog, and basically keep the place in better shape than I would have believed had I not actually seen it. IT DIDN'T STINK. I don't remember the last time I went into a shelter that just felt healthy. Sure, the staff are overworked and underfunded, but they are doing an amazing job. This is the clinic that Ligia (which I previously spelled "Lehilla" incorrectly) basically ran as a one-woman army. My respect for her just grows by leaps and bounds. We didn't treat as many animals today, but we were able to tend to the shelter's most crucial cases, which mainly involved lots of mange diagnoses and teeth-pulling. All told, our 2 vets pulled 59 teeth between them, leaving many animals with far fewer teeth and far less pain. Danielle was even able to concoct a medication with a maple syrup base to give to the cats for oral pain, because when your resources are as scarce as they are here, you get creative quick. I am endlessly impressed with the ingenuity I've seen. For example, one man came in who had fashioned his own "cone of shame" for his dog by cutting a hole in the bottom of a plastic bucket and securing a collar to it. I'm seriously recommending this to my family when I get home--we're gonna MacGyver that shit.After a tour of the shelter, our day ended a couple of hours earlier than usual, and we rushed home to shower and get ready to shop in Antigua. The market we went to was basically a series of shops with the same general things in them, but it was colorful and sunny and pleasant. I even managed to try my hand at bartering, and did quite well (even according to our local Guatemalan friends). Then we went out for drinks and food, and now I'm flopped in bed, seriously looking forward to sleep. It has been a wonderful day, and I can't believe it is already our third.Random things:--There is a farming method here called "three sister fields". Basically, the farmers grow squash, beans, and corn in the same field to get the highest yield. The beans fix nitrogen in the soil, and the super-tall corn stalks provide a trellis up which the beans and squash grow. --According to Anita, the jungle/forest around her clinic is home to a boa constrictor. I did not manage to see the beast, but you can bet I looked. Danika thought my fascination was just a tad creepy, but come on, a BOA CONSTRICTOR IN THE WILD. Too darn cool to be creepy.--Danielle passed on this tidbit of wisdom from one of her old teachers in Guatemala: "Quesadillas hacen pesadillas." In other words, eating cheesy foods in the evening leads to nightmares. I am wiser now than before, but my stomach is sad.--About the house where we're staying--I've mentioned that it's far colder here than expected, but it doesn't help that this house is so open. The boundary between indoors and outdoors is just much more vague here, and I'm pretty sure they don't have any indoor heating. They probably don't even need it often enough to justify the expense. Other interesting things about it--there are something like 20 dogs here and I have no idea how many cats. Some of the dogs are well-behaved and hang out down in the courtyard and are allowed to wander inside on occasion. However, there are also a large number of "roof dogs" that live on the fenced-in roof (I'm assuming they've misbehaved somehow, although they are super-sweet and friendly). The roof has large glass blocks incorporated into it that let in a nice ambient light, but when the dogs are excited about something it feels like I am being stampeded on as the shadows flash over the floor.Good gravy, I'm tired. Buenas noches, people.

Guatemala Day 3

kaiodee — Mon, 01 Mar 2021 19:04:39 +0000

Guatemala Day 3 kaiodee Mon, 03/01/2021 - 13:04

'This morning, we set out for our second village, Yalu (pronounced Jah-loo). Did I mention before how strange the juxtaposition is between our temporary residence here and these villages? We live in first-world accommodations, but a scant 30 minutes away we are plunged into a third-world area that's really just blowing my mind. Our little public building in Yalu had no running water at all, and we race the daylight in order to get as many spays and neuters done as possible (25 today!). Just getting to our surgery sites was a challenge--we left pavement far behind as we bounced over the rutted streets, narrowly avoiding villagers with their cows and horses, children scattering in front of us. The interaction with the people is also amazing--first of all, they live in these dirty, dusty hovels, but their clothing is absolutely beautiful. The craftsmanship that went into the intricate embroidery, the colors incorporated into the shawls used to carry babies on their backs, EVERYTHING is beautiful. They are also EXTREMELY curious--so far, both of our surgery sites have had plenty of windows, and the Guatemalan faces press in to see what on Earth we could be doing with their animals. However, one of our group's members encourages this interest, at least in the children--Steve always brings small packets of Oreos to hand out to the children, and for some reason we also had pencils to give today. One little boy leaned in a broken window to whisper to me, "Quiero una galleta [I want a cookie]" with an impish grin. Suenos International only travels here once a year, but the reputation precedes us. Another thing--this kids are TOUGH. Herds of children flock around our surgery sites, rough-housing with each other in the rock-strewn streets and scaling the building as much as they are able. The first time I heard one cry was late yesterday when we had to tell a little boy that his puppy had died during surgery. A later necropsy showed us that the puppy's heart was very deformed, and that while the anesthesia shortened it's life, it didn't shorten it by much. I forgot to write about this before, but it might be just SLIGHTLY useful if I actually explained how this whole undertaking came to be. Danielle, our head veterinarian, has only been out of the CSU vet program for about 6 years, but she spent her summers during vet school traveling to Guatemala to teach underprivileged children Spanish while improving her own grasp of the knowledge. She fell in love with the country, and decided to donate generous amounts of her time and money for this yearly trip to spay and neuter the hell out of local animals. She, along with her dad Steve, comprise the founders of Suenos International. Kristy. a classmate and close friend of Danielle's acts as the main surgeon for the operation. Danika and I are 3rd and 2nd year veterinary students, respectively, at CSU and joined this endeavor to learn as much as possible while assisting Danielle and Kristy. Danielle and I are the only ones who understand Spanish (she is fluent, I am NOT), but the other awesome thing about this trip is that Danielle has connections here that house us, transport us around, and translate for us. Right now we are staying with Darby, Sep, and Lehilla, a wonderful group of people who own this lovely bed-and-breakfast in a gated community of San Lucas. I don't think Darby ever sleeps--if you need something, he is ON IT, and that holds true whether you are family or a random person on the street. Sep is extremely useful as an assistant and translator, and Lehilla is actually beginning her veterinary program next week after successfully managing a large animal shelter for many years. Hint: she's going to rock at being a vet. She pretty much already does.Ooh, here's a good example of how awesome our "host family" is--Darby has taken it as his personal mission to find another puppy for the boy who's puppy died yesterday, and to deliver it personally. These people do so much for us and the mission of Suenos International, and they do it almost entirely for free. In a country as poor as Guatemala, that is a beautiful thing.Anyways, to try and jump back into some chronological order, we began our day at just after 7:00 with hot, strong coffee, fried plantains, papaya, local bread, beans, and fried eggs. It was just freakin' delicious. We got to meet the mystery behind our meals yesterday morning in the form of Sep's aunt, and you should have seen her little old face glow when we complimented her cooking. Extremely stinkin' adorable.Then we drove back through Santa Marta to drop off the crazy lady's dogs from yesterdays. Surprisingly, it went very well--it would appear that she was afraid we were going to turn her dog gay, but when he began actively humping the other family dog, her fears dissipated. Next, we traveled on to Yalu, down a precipitous dirt road to a community building identical to our first site, sans water.We were afraid that no one would show up as we have fewer connections in this village, but plenty of people did in the long run. We had a surprising number of animals that refused to be anesthetized (including some extremely scrappy cats), but in the long run, we achieved our goals. And nobody died. I think the most fun thing that happened to me today was just interacting with the children in general. At once point, I felt little bitty fingers poking me randomly on my back, and turned around to find a group of giggling girls enamored with all of the "gatos" on my scrub top. These people seem very stoic in general, but when they return your smile they shine. Random things I forgot to say and don't want to incorporate now:--It's way colder here than I expected. I gather that we are currently in the highlands of Guatemala and that things will warm up considerably on the coast, but damn. Wish I had brought another sweater.--The currency here is the quetzal, which is also a really pretty bird. And yes, Mom, I will bring back an array of coins for show-and-tell. :)--We, as foreigners, face a certain degree of hostility here. Guatemala refuses to allow Americans to adopt, for example, because stories circulate about us stealing their children (perhaps well-meaning missionaries "saving" poor kids?). Still, the degree to which we are welcomed in these communities is an impressive testament to the good work that Suenos International has done--we don't come here to judge or change things, but simply to help with a problem that the people already recognize (an overabundance of dogs and cats).--I am very tall. And very white.--Danielle, Kristy, Steve, and I all come from backgrounds that involved a great deal of Nerts (I honestly have no idea how to spell the name of this game). I accepted this revelation with the assertion that I would dominate them, to which Steve replied something along the lines of "Bring it on." I have not indeed dominated, but neither have I dishonored my family. I will not have to fall on a sword in shame.--As opposed to Santa Marta, a large number of people in Yalu don't speak Spanish. Instead, they actually still speak a Mayan language, the name of which I couldn't spell if my life depended on it. So, we ended up needing a local woman to translate Mayan to Spanish for us, and then for someone else to translate the Spanish to English. It worked out surprisingly well.Okay, I've written a ton and still probably left out a lot of awesome stuff. I'm letting the other girls take loads of pictures of which I will later get a copy, and then there will be some photographic evidence of my adventures.Mom and Grandmomma, thanks SO much for the words of support on yesterday's blog. It has indeed been amazing, Mom. Grandmomma, knowing that you're proud of me makes it infinitely better. I'M proud that such awesome women can see the value of what I do, and helped me to get here. All in all, we're just a wonderful bunch of people. :D

Guatemala: Days 1 & 2

kaiodee — Mon, 01 Mar 2021 19:01:58 +0000

Guatemala: Days 1 & 2 kaiodee Mon, 03/01/2021 - 13:01

'Okay, guys, this won't be my best bit of writing. It's 11:00 pm on Thursday and I am tired, but I figure I'll forget some of the details if I don't type things out now. It's been an awesome trip so far, despite some inauspicious beginnings.Getting up at 3:45 am Wednesday morning, I began my 3-leg journey to Guatemala, during which I would also switch airlines. It was...well, interesting. Let's start with my baggage check-in. An extremely ditzy and uninformed airline attendant told me I'd have to re-check my suitcase when I switched airlines, which I had definitely not figured into my schedule. Upon further inquiry (which her lazy ass couldn't be bothered to do), I found that she was wrong, but my luggage had already been sent to be loaded on the airplane. With a bit of panicking and a fair amount of glaring, I convinced another attendant to fix this problem, and arrived at my gate in time for my departure. Upon arriving in Guatemala, however, my luggage was (duh duh DUH) missing. I'm quite proud of how calm I remained, however, as we trekked all over the Guatemala City airport in search of someone that could help. By "we," I mean me, the girl who had organized the trip (Danielle), and this random British fellow who had also lost his luggage and needed Danielle's translation skills. His luggage turned out to be easy to find, but mine was still MIA, so we filed a claim with the correct officials and prayed we could believe them when they said my luggage would arrive in a couple of days."Well, fuck it," I thought to myself. "I'm resourceful. I'll be fine." And fine I have been, although I emanated that special stank that comes from traveling all day. Thankfully, this awesome trip is sponsored in part by a Guatemalan family who shuttles us around, provides our rooms, and feeds us delicious home-cooked food. For example, our evening meal on Wednesday was a traditional Guatemalan soup called "pepian." Basically, the only inconvenience for me was a lack of my habitual personal hygiene, but I managed to secure a toothbrush and a bit of soap. Waking up at 6:30 am the next day, I quickly realized how little time it takes to prepare for the day when all you have to do is put your hair in a ponytail. It was almost relaxing, actually. It was kind of comfy wallowing in my own dirt. I'd be ashamed of that, but I'm tired and I don't care. You should definitely try filthy wallowing, though--it's underrated.Packing up our medical equipment, we headed out for our first day of spays and neuters in a local village called Santa Marta. As we bounced down a serpentine road from our home base of San Lucas, we stopped to pick up a group of villagers on their way to our surgery site with their dogs. With the van packed to the gills, we arrived in Santa Marta to begin the volunteer work. This was probably the first time I have been exposed to poverty on this level--running water was a luxury, to say the least. We certainly didn't have sterile operating rooms in which to perform surgery. Instead, we took over a room in the local school and performed under the close scrutiny of all ages of Guatemalans, pressed to the windows of the little room to see what we were doing. Frankly, a lot of the day was a blur. We spayed or neutered 28 animals, and vaccinated many more. Our only spot of trouble came when it was revealed that two of the dogs we had neutered were not supposed to be. However, according to the villagers, the woman who was upset at her dogs being neutered was basically the local crazy bitch. She had sent the animals with her little son to a spay/neuter clinic, but had failed to provide clear instructions that only vaccinations were to be given. Once they were fixed, we were seriously concerned that she would abandon the dogs to the street, not to mention beat her child in anger. And if we ever want to be able to work with that community again, there's not a whole lot we can do about it. It's an interesting aspect of this work, that so much of our itinerary is uncertain and requires cooperation from a complex network of people. So in summary, overall my first day and a half has been great. I'm getting to practice my Spanish, of which I remember far more than expected (THANK YOU HIGH SCHOOL CLASSES!), and I've learned so much more about spays and neuters, as well as basic things that can be applied to a variety of surgeries. I'm overwhelmingly happy to get to be a part of this. It's really helping me to remember WHY I'm going through the challenge of vet school. It's so easy to forget when you're studying so hard that you can't remember the last time you ate, much less showered. But this, THIS, is why I'm doing it. I won't always be able to work pro bono, but I definitely intend to dedicate substantial amounts of my energy to volunteer work. Until tomorrow!