gatos y perros

On the weekend, I had the opportunity to volunteer with a different group of people. A vet clinic was held in Akumal Pueblo for cats and dogs in the area to be spayed, neutered and vaccinated for free. (If the owners only wanted vaccinations, but not spaying or neutering, there was a charge). Vets from Meridia came to town to do the procedure for anyone who brought their animals to us for the day. It was held in two classrooms of a secondary school (which I found out is not high school, but grades 7, 8 and 9... high school is in Tulum). One classroom was the operating room and the other was the recovery room (there was supposed to be an intake room too but this wasn't made available, so intake was kind of done outside and in the recovery room). We didn't have the canopy set up until very late Saturday, so we got extremely hot working outside in the sun, registering the animals and getting them into kennels. On Sunday, everything went according to plan and it was very organized. The women that runthe clinic live nearby and I'm quite certain they are all from the U.S. originally (some live here part of the year, others make Akumal their permanent home). Four or five times a year they run clinics in different places in the Yucatan. On Saturday, I helped in the recovery room. The animals (mostly dogs... the cats were done later in the afternoon and four of us took off for a break while the cats were recovering!) needed to be monitored, ice applied to the incision area (sometimes), IVs taken out (I let the more experienced people handle this), heads stroked, ticks picked out, ears cleaned (if they were really dirty), and claws clipped.

On Saturday, my job was to tend to the kittens that were dropped off (no one really knew their story or where their mother was). One kitten was only about 2 weeks old (at most). They brought formula which I fed her from a bottle through the day (they need to be fed every 3 hours). It's kind of tricky to position the bottle/nipple just right to make sure it is going down properly and not into the cat's lungs. Three other older kittens (6 weeks maybe) were feral so Jen took them out (hissing prefusely and trying to scratch) in a small towel and put them (one at a time) on my lap. For about 3 hours, I was holding one feral cat with the littlest one. The younger one fell asleep but I'm pretty sure the feral cat never totally relaxed. One of the ferals was a beautiful calico with really cool markings. It takes several days of handling to make these kittens become used to people, but eventually they become tame. Apparently, you can adopt two cats under 8 weeks of age and take them aboard most U.S. airlines (in the passenger cabin). I can't imagine subjecting an animal to hours in a cargo hold, but some airlines have a special area set up for animals, and someone to check on them too. At the end of the day, I was convinced that I would adopt the littlest one (although there was no way I could foster it back at the dorm in a room with 7 other people!), but I have to think about Scooper and how it would affect her. I don't think it would be wise.

I finally went to town (Playa del Carmen) and bought batteries for my camera. I will take them to the office today with the charger to see if there is anywhere to plug it in and get them charged. My dorm has one outlet, but everyone has their electronic equipment plugged into it (possibly overloading the circuitry, but maybe it's ok).

There is a good chance that I will be cutting back the length of my trip by 2 or 3 weeks. I'd love to stay on and everything is going well, but now that our dorm is full, life has become more stressful. If I do catch an earlier flight home, I will spend up to a week in Playa del Carmen in a hotel room where I can unwind alone. I knew it would a challenge to share a room with other people, but now that I'm really doing it, I've discovered just how hard this situation is for me. And it isn't the people; these are the nicest bunch of university kids you'd ever want to meet (they came in from Mexico City on Sunday night). I spent the day shopping with them and they're amazing. Very intelligent and a lot of fun.

The only thing I want to make sure I do before I leave the area is check out Tulum and Copa (where there are ruins). Tulum is just 20 minutes away (opposite direction from Playa del Carmen). There are "colectivos" that pass by the highway outside Akumal every ten minutes and they are cheap (15 pesos to Playa)! I wish Hamilton had colectivos; the ride to work would be a dream instead of the nightmare that it is. (A colectivo is a comfy minivan with a/c that seats 10 passengers). And I've never seen so many taxis in one small place. They are not cheap, but ideal if you are sharing a ride with others.

Ok. I guess I should go to the office and do some work... oh, maybe not... I just got an invitation to go to someone's pool! (Maggie helped on the weekend, and she is also the director of the public library in Akumal). Yay! This will definitely cheer me up. :-D

Tam