Just a bit

So we decided to get rid of our dog. Dogs in Honduras really only have one purpose, to protect the house. This means they are supposed to bark, be brave, and actually intimidate people. Our dog, well, our former dog, did none of the above. The only time he made noise was at 5:30 in the morning when he would whimper and throw himself against the front door because he wanted to come in. He didn’t generally react when there was someone knocking at the door, and kids would come in and he would show indifference. It was really a lousy situation for a guard dog. We found someone in the community that was looking for a dog, and off he went.
We then received a kitten from Isabel, someone we spend a lot of time with here in town, and as of yet there are no complaints. The kitten is fun, energetic, and hasn’t meowed yet. Last night it decided to sleep with me, which actually didn’t turn out all that badly. It purred me to sleep, and kept my neck warm all night. The only drawback was a two am wake up call when it decided it wanted to play and bit my nose, but it quickly forgot about wanting to play and went back to its purring and heating business.

Yesterday I went to the clinic again, and had another great day. This time I decided to spend the day with the doctor there, who is Honduran, but speaks some English because she studied in Miami for a year. She was great, really patient and explained a lot to me. I only had to ask for clarification in English once, which means either she was dumbing down her Spanish, or I’m starting to learn more. Probably a combination of both!
This time we saw a lot more adults that I saw the previous week, but I’m glad to see both, as there are very different things to learn from each. As expected the theme was the same as the last week, everything was more or less preventable that we saw. Diabetes, high blood pressure, and obesity were definitely the three most common diagnoses, with a few respiratory infections and some muscular issues due to the strenuous work these people are doing at advanced ages.

Monday we had domestic violence again, and this week was quite an interesting one. The room we usually use had no chair in this week because they were being used for a different meeting, so we had to meet in the hall, and therefore decided not to proceed with our lesson, because often times the discussion gets personal, and things are shared that aren’t to be discusses in the hall of the health center. One of the women in the group decided we should do a ‘dyanimico’, an ice breaker of sorts. She explained it to the group and Melissa and I were just participating. I think it was really empowering for the woman to run the game and have it be a success, and the rest of the women in the group loved it. Everyone was laughing and just being silly, what a perfect way to welcome the two new members of our group!