Esperanza

5/13/2009

Esperanza is a very small Mayan village. The main means of earning a living is by making and selling charcoal. A huge bag sells for 50 pesos, less than $4. We had expected 10 dogs and had 34 presented for altering.

The building we were using as our clinic turned out to be a jail. The rooms had heavy doors made of bars.

The children had great smiles and were fascinated by what we were doing. They were given small pins with “Spay / Neuter” on them with a picture of cat in a nurses uniform. These were courtesy of Marilyn Christiansen, one of our doctors.

Our gracious hosts allowed the children to finish our lunch. That brought smiles all around. These little ones were all fluent in Mayan and Spanish. Some could even speak a little English.

The animals were delivered and picked up in whatever was available. Cats were often carried in open bags which made for an interesting time after surgery. We over used the cliche “don’t let the cat out of the bag!”

We were told that the people were very curious about what we were doing. There has never been a clinic in this area to perform spay neuter for these animals. We were very well received and I believe we will be able to build on this next year.