Thursday, October 16, 2008

24 hours of rain?

The hospital and clinic were quite busy this week. I was thinking about going to study Spanish somewhere for 1-2 weeks, but it seems that I, and the 3 other med students and 4 residents, are gainfully employed/volunteered. One day I stitched up a gash on a 2 year old's forehead. This made me reconsider my plan to get some thread from the market here and try to embroider. That same day on my way home I was looking for a dog to give my leftover meat from lunch to. I found a very appreciative dog and all was well. But then I continued on my way home and happened upon the Saddest Dog in Santiago Atitlan. I'd seen it before: all skin and bones and mange. But I had already given away my meat, so I went to get some bread from a tienda. Much to my embarrassment I couldn't hold it together long enough to complete the purchase and pretty much fell apart in front of the shopkeeper. I think she was baffled by my explanation which was along the lines of "sad, sick, hungry dog". Anyway, the dog seemed to enjoy the bread and I may have prolonged its miserable life a little bit. (Until it eats the poisoned meat that the city puts out periodically to control the dog population.)

I was shaken out of my despair when I got home by a very large spider on the wall next to my bed. I tried to collect it with a coffee cup, but it was TOO BIG! A cereal bowl, however, did the trick. I know that spiders are supposed to be good, and Charlotte was wonderful and all, but I think this spider could have bitten off one of my digits. I didn't take it too far away from the house and we may meet again ... I hope I don't shriek this time. Where did this visceral fear come from, anyway.

Instead of going elsewhere to a Spanish school, I decided to just hire a tutor here in Santiago. Today was my first lesson, which lasted 2 hours. It is about $5 per hour, which is more than other places, but I am really hoping it will help. We just talked and read stories, which I summarized. I even have an assignment which reminds me of second grade: use all the words that I didn't know from the stories in sentences. I think I used to try to use all the spelling words in one sentence. I'm afraid that my grammatical skills (or lack thereof) will not allow me to do this in Spanish, but maybe the next set of words :)

Tonight I'm going to eat dinner with some of the other volunteers and tomorrow is call in the emergency room of the hospital again. I hope that it stops raining so I can go to San Pedro over the weekend!

3 comments:

Erin M said...

Rebecca,
Hang in there! Your problems with the shopkeeper may have been a combination of language and culture--they may not understand why you want to feed stray dogs (at least they didn't in this poor Portuguese town I visited). I'm proud of all you're doing, which is so foreign to what you're used to. Good luck and I hope you get to visit San Pedro.
Erin

Kate said...

Rebecca,

Don't feel bad - I did the same thing yesterday. Broke down in my car after seeing a half alive buck on the side of the road. We're compassionate people I guess! The Dominican Republic has the same issue - completely overridden with stray dogs. They roam in packs in the streets. The domincans don't really consider dogs as pets there, so it is viewed as strange if you try to pet the dog or help it. Just a cultural barrier. You are doing great and I can't wait to hear more adventures.

quiero a practicar espanol contigo! Necesito mas practica tambien! Buena suerte :)

Bonnie said...

Oh, Rebecca... it is my goal to comment on every entry of your blog! Good for you for dispensing with that spider. I had a rather large spider hanging out above my apartment door a few weeks ago, and I couldn't bring myself to do anything at all... you are an inspiration.