Erin Miller

Hola amigos,
Not much new to report in La Esperanza this week. My work continues to go well at the hospital and tomorrow I will also begin giving “charlas” at the Centro de Salud. I should let those of you doctor-types out there, that I have managed to aquire some pictures of the bot-fly extraction, and they are posted below in the post about the medical brigade
It is springtime in Honduras and there are babies (people and animals) all over the place. The albergue has exploded with women. While there were usually 6-10 women at the Albergue when I first arrived, there were 20 last week and 25 this week. It is great because it means that my education is reaching a large number of women, but it also means that I have been buying more food than expected the last couple of weeks and could use even more donations. If you are interested in donating, please see Make a Donation to help feed pregnant women in La Esperanza, Honduras
So with not much new here, I figure I would give you all an update about my usual daily interaction with animals. When I told my host mom that there was not a rooster within 50 miles of where I lived, she was in absolute disbelief. But come to think of it, I can’t imagine waking up at 5:45 without the cry of the roosters either.
Everyday on my way to the center of town, I pass Lola. I don’t think that she likes me very much. She often turns her back on me as I come around the corner. I approach saying, over and over again, “hola, hola, hola, hola, Lalo, hola, hola, hola. ” I have no idea why she doesn’t like me. Her owners have assured me that “ella puede dicer de todo,” but she never has much to say to me. I have managed to get nothing more than a grumbled “hola” out of her. But I have recently been seriously working on our relationship. I figure there will be few times in my life when I wil pass a parrot everday on my way to town and I ought to work to at least have a speaking relationship with her. I think we are making progress, she no longer always turns her back on me, and I hope that with some work, I will manage to get a cheerful “adios” as I pass.

Lalo
One of our family dogs has had puppies. Bola, short for Bola de Nieve (snow ball) gave birth to 6 puppies under our porch about a month ago. One died shortly after birth, but the others are doing great and beginning to wonder all over the yard on their own. They are also beginning to steal the food from both their mom and dad. The puppies’ dad also lives with us. I asked how we knew he was the dad, and the housekeeper just looked at me questioningly. How do I think she knows? And then I remembered what my mom said about growing up in the country, and how sex education was not as necessary a part of the curriculum, because everyone gets a pretty good idea of how things work.

puppy family

We also have a pregnant cat at our homestay, and will have kittens any day now. The cat curled up on my lap as I was writing in my journal and I could feel the kittens bouncing all over the place. Gato (I am not sure if the cat has any other name) also found another animal in our house — a full grown scorpion. The dad saw the cat playing with the scopion and broke the scorpion’s tail off before allowing the cat to finish killing it. Awesome. I love scopions. (I hope the sarcasm isn’t too difficult to get across in a blog post.) I have been religiously checking my sheets every night before I get into bed, and trying to remember to check my shoes. My host dad said that scorpions are pretty rare in the house, but they can be very dangerous in boots. He also said that it was one of the reasons he liked having the cat around. That was when I started letting the cat in my room, and under and on my bed.
The other day the dogs were barking like crazy as I approached the house after meeting up with the other volunteers at our usual bar in the city. It was around 9pm and I couldn’t figure out why the dogs were barking so much. It is pretty dark out by our house, and even with my head lamp it took me a minute to realize that there was a horse standing horizontally blocking the gate in front of my house. I stared at the horse. There was no other way into the house. I knew enough not to try to walk around his back legs, so I stared at him and finally tried making a clicking sound that I hoped indicated I wanted him to move. My host dad came out wondering what the dogs were barking at. “What’s going on?” “Hay un caballo.” And as soon as the words left my lips, the horse moved along and cleared a path through the gate.
Last Friday, there wasn’t much work to be done at the hospital so I went and worked on building houses with the construction volunteers. Great fun. We did a terrfically difficult day of work. I got to hack at the sides of the mud pit with a pickaxe, jump on the mud once the water was added to the clay, add the pineneedles and jump some more, and then lift out a quantitiy of mud sufficient for 50 adobes (which, is a lot). My muscles are just beginning to feel like they are getting back to normal.

digging in the pit

stomping the mud

The amount of mud we made and moved in a day. The kid is 14 years old, though admitidly better at making and moving mud than Megan and I put together.

building site with kids