Peace Corps Pet #2: Oliver!

After a request from a dear penpal, I'm working on post on about my project work, goals, and reflections. I realize I write very little about work - these first six months have been way more about adapting and integrating and just living - but I think six months in is a good time to write such a post - it's just going to take a little thinking and pruning before I release it off onto the web.

In the meanwhile I realized I haven't mentioned much about a major life change, my new kitten, Oliver! My whole host family knows I like cats, and that I'd been feeling down about Mishi since he took off. One day about three weeks ago my 5-year-old twin host cousins came back from their grandma's house, knocked on my window, and announced that they had a "regalo" for me.

Typically this would be a total trick and they would just want an excuse to be let into my room in order to run around screaming and wreaking general chaos, so I ignored them. Yet after a little while my older host sister, too, knocked on the door, and so I answered. And there he was in a little box: a tiny kitten of maybe 8 weeks of age. Originally I wasn't going to get another pet if Mishi didn't come back; but with a motherless kitten on my hands, I was feeling kind of flexible.

At any rate, Oliver has been great. After an initial night of crying and hiding he's gotten used to the environment and seems content with eating, sleeping, digging in his improvised litter box, and tearing around the room chasing everything from my toilet paper roll to the cat toys my parents sent. And he's so tiny, my room is plenty big for the moment, which is great. (My little host brother calls him "Botz Mishi" which means "Small Mishi" in Mam... too cute.) I am hoping we will be together for the rest of my 18 months here, but at the same time just really enjoying the time we have here together now.











As for Mishi, I still think of him, but his fate is definitively out of my hands unless he comes back. And I feel okay about that, since I think that as a time-hardened callejero he had earned the right to come and go as he wanted.

Hmm... I am definitely headed for total cat lady status, aren't I, though? I'm pretty sure I've already secured my status with my host family in future volunteer stories as "the one who loved cats."

Life on the rollercoaster

What to report of late? It's interesting, but in these past two weeks since my vacation I am really getting back into the “life here is so worthwhile” and I dare say, on occasion, “I love it here!” frame of mind, which is great. It is so interesting to note my own mood swings and the “rollercoaster” of emotion as my good friend from my training town commented on her blog. It is fascinating to me how we humans are able to adapt ourselves to different situations, and the processes we go through during that adaptation - how different my feelings can be from week to week and day to day.

Things are looking up primarily for the fact that the new environmental educator has started in my office, and coincidentally a whole pile of potential work and collaborations have started showing up. My counterpart also recently suggested monthly planning meetings - which I have mentioned a few times and have been fantasizing about for months - and I am really psyched. In this month's planning meeting we already planned October's planning meeting. I am sure it will actually happen, too, +/-7 days from its scheduled date. Amazing! My philosophy in these past nearly six months has been that for sustainability's sake there is only so much you can exert yourself if local counterparts don't take initiative. So when they do, it is a real eureka moment! It just requires a lot of patience... perhaps 24 months of patience...

In the months before summer vacation sets in we're primarily doing a survey on local opinions about tourism, as well as some activities with local schools and young people, including promoting the park and recreation center as a good location for the sixth-graders' farewell party. I feel good about this work. It's important in my view to make the community aspect of “community tourism” actually happen, and not leave it as a half-baked idea. (Of which there are unfortunately many in my municipality and in my office, specifically.) We also are starting a project with local Mayan priests to name and “label” the 20-something altars in the protected areas of the muni with wood signs, assuming the priests give it the OK. I am thinking this collaboration could lead to some cool projects later on, too. Not to mention everything else we'd like to do in November and December...

So at this point we have a ton of work to do and it constantly feels like herding cats. Or at times, juggling them. Efficiency is a whole other concept here and keeping track of all the loose ends requires a lot of organization and patience. I am kind of hoping I don't adapt too much – could make reverse-adaptation to the US work-world a real shock!

A recent downturn of events is that Mishi has gone on the lamb, presumably in hunt of a nice sexy lady friend, or several nice sexy lady friends. He took off three days ago, disappointingly the day before I got a package of toys and catnip for him from my parents. (Heaven help my future children from the spoiling they are going to get!) The package is a whole other cultural commentary for another day...

The downturn is mostly because he had been acting out-of-character and aggressive lately, and gave me a good bite or two in the last two weeks. Per standard protocol I had been keeping an eye on him since the last bite to be sure the aggression was behavioral and not medical (rabies, for instance) – but since he took off, you can't say for sure. So, rabies prophylaxis it is; I get the final shot on Monday. I really doubt he had rabies, but nevertheless, the idea scares the hell out of me, so I called in. The Peace Corps Medical Officer was really understanding on the phone, although clearly not too excited I'd adopted a quasi-feral street cat. Fair enough.

But you had to know him. What a great cat. I hope he comes home.

Man of Faith, Man of Reason: Part 2

I realize I left the story hanging there with the pobre Mishi, so to cut to the chase: he’s recovered, as far as I can tell happy, and getting fatter by the day. And all the volunteers got their barbecue and potato salad at the 4th of July.

After posting my last blog I went home, and there was Mishi still: curled under a sheet on my bed, drooling, breathing heavily. My family, like the average family of my town, isn’t famously in love with stray animals (nor the hair they leave around - understandably, since they’re worried it’ll give the baby asthma; I’ve tried to tell my host sister that I grew up with my face practically rubbed in cat hair every day, and I turned out fine, but you just don’t want to mess with mama bear); so I was worried they might just kick him out on the street de una vez when I left the next morning for the capital.

What to do? I called my mom in the US, and she suggested something altogether radical: talk to my host family about my fears. So I did, and sure, my host sister said. They’d check in on him now and again, although he’d get the boot if he made himself a nuisance. Feeling somewhat better I sat down at the table and accidentally invited myself – see upcoming post on sharing - to the birthday celebration of my host uncle.

That was when the magical thing happened. A bowl of toasted noodle and chicken caldo and some tamalitos later (I secretly pocketed the chicken to try to tempt Mishi into eating), I mentioned casually that the cat was sick and I was leaving the next day.

Sick? Inquired my host grandmother, who is a midwife (she definitely merits her own post, see upcoming).

Yeah, since three days ago, he has something on his paw, I said, trying to mask my excitement that someone might care about Mishi besides me.

I’ll take a look at him after the meal, then, she said.

Several jokes about pregnant male cats later, and to my amazement, the entire family was gathered in my room at the bedside of the hyperventilating Mishi, absolutely quiet. Even the little cousins, who physically lack the ability to stand still and most commonly could be found chasing Mishi around the yard screaming, were completely reverent.

After a brief check-up with each adult in the family assessing his paw and his other symptoms, my host grandmother summarized: Well, he ‘ll live. It’s because of the pain he’s acting so.

I don’t know what to do! I blurted out. I’m leaving tomorrow at 5 am and won’t be back until Monday. Can he stay in my room until I get back? I didn’t add, if he makes it.

He’s really bad, said my host grandfather.

Well, what are we going to do? asked my host grandmother. My heart jumped in my chest: we.

I suddenly felt surrounded by family, enveloped and nourished by the understanding that they saw and understood my love for this little pest, even if they themselves didn’t feel it; enveloped by the feeling that they would care for this cat for a little while, if only because they cared for me.

Leave me that little box. I’ll take him to the vet tomorrow, said my host grandfather. I didn’t know how to respond; this was beyond all expectations. So I only nodded and agreed to leave the box and money to cover expenses.

Later, after everyone had left, my host grandparents stayed around a little while chatting with me, perhaps sensing my loneliness. You all in your country have much care for animals, eh? commented my grandmother. Here, we don’t have much care for animals. But the Bible says that we should. That left me feeling like a real person, a person of reason and good, not just some foreigner who needed a place to stay. They stayed another few minutes chatting about life in the US, Bible stories, the time the family dog was on his death bed for four days and they wouldn't bother to take him to the vet, but he made it through anyway.

For me this was a powerful experience; I realized that so much of the hardship of the experience was feeling alone and separate. In that last week, amongst all the other cultural differences, I was struggling to not care for a cat in a culture in which stray animals have no importance, realizing I had to care and realizing the personal importance the unconditional acceptance of that cat had for me, feeling that no one would relate to my experience or perspective, and not wanting to burden or alienate others by sharing it.

Yet lesson learned: there can be so much happiness to be had in opening yourself up to others, in letting them hold you up for a little, even when you are unsure of their reactions. And even if you will someday become a story about the gringa who loved that little cat to such an inexplicable degree.

Man of Faith, Man of Reason

Mixi (mee-shee) Arturo Lopez, a gato callejero, came into my life one evening some three months ago, when I caught him eating an entire raw chicken the family had left on the kitchen table. I was a little freaked out by him at first. What kind of ferocious mini-cat-beast had I encountered, savaging the carcass of that poor departed bird?

I soon discovered that despite his rough exterior, he had a softer side, with urgent cries at my door whenever he wanted some lovin’. For the past three months I’ve been fighting the urge to do more than give him the occasional snuggle. It’s not sustainable, I thought. I’ll be gone in 21 months and he’ll be left here, accustomed to receiving food and moral support at my doorstep. It’d be ridiculous to bring him back to the US with so many homeless animals there.

And besides, I used to comfort myself, he’s totally callejero. He knows how to take care of himself and always has. It’s wrong of me to think of him as my pet.

Nevertheless, Mixi hits me deep down, on the level of a person in need of the feeling of regular love and affection. I realized the weakness of my moral boundaries on Sunday, when he hobbled into my room on three paws, the fourth obviously injured. Despite his troubles, all he wanted to do was hunker down in my lap and purr. I was immediately overwhelmed by the love I feel for him, this tiny ferocious creature who chooses to sit in my lap and snuggle under the covers up against me. And that love quickly turned to worry about what I could do to make him better, and whether it was enough.

After an examination that thoroughly aggravated him, I realized he has some sort of burn or growth on a rear paw which pains him a lot. This was concerning in itself, but yesterday and last night, he did nothing but sleep curled up in a ball on my bed; he wouldn’t purr, just let out the occasional guttural cry. This really worried me. He would never act like this normally.

So take him to the vet an hour away, easy, right? Before he seemed seriously ill, I was questioning whether going to a vet with a street cat made sense in this cultural context, with plenty of people without basic health care... but now that moral qualms have slid away into worry, I'm not even sure I have a way to physically take him.

Today I tried to take him in the morning, but without a carrier to restrain him, he wouldn’t even tolerate the walk to the bus stop. After five minutes he jumped out of the towel-lined cardboard box he'd settled into and sprinted away. I was relieved when we met back up at home and he let me pick him up. I felt bad for having taxed his energy, but also relieved he still had it. Yet I felt so strained by the moment's demands: what to do for him? In a split decision, I had the overwhelming sense he was telling me enough was enough; so I put him down in the covered woodpile, relatively safe from today’s harsh winds and rain, and he snuggled up there. I checked two hours later and he was gone or hidden. I still don’t know where he is.

That’s (as on LOST) where our reason and faith enter, the struggle I’ve been fighting since Sunday. Should I have gotten him to the vet earlier, and at whatever cost? Should I find him and tape him in a box, trap him in a pillowcase, screaming and miserable, and pay a private taxi or beg my host father; if that is the only way to maximize his chances of surviving healthfully? Or is it better to leave him in peace, believe in his own ability to heal, let him to his own instincts to curl up and hide in a good place?

I’m so worried about him. What if last night and this morning’s behavior is a sign of a bad infection or illness in the paw, and he’ll really die without a vet? What if he suffers a lot, alone? Tomorrow I leave at 5 am for the capital, a mandatory dental appointment, and three days of 4th of July celebrations. So that more or less decides it; for now I will have to be a woman of faith. If I’m not, there’s nothing left for me.

Worries aside, I do hope everyone at home has a happy 4th. We'll certainly be celebrating here. Although I'll miss Gramom's potato salad, rumor has it they'll be all manner of United Statesian fare at the party...