Catching Up on Photos!

Hello again! Our team has set up a Shutterfly account, so we can share our photos with each other, and that means I can add to the blog, even though I didn't get to borrow everyone's camera chips during the trip! 

All of our patients had paper collars, labelled with their name and number, so we could keep track, for sure, of which pet was who. From start to finish, everything we did was marked on the paper. We tried to keep papers and animals together, but a couple of times we were really glad of the collars, to match everyone up:

 Waking up in World Vets clinic recovery looks something like this:

 These two girls worked all day, every day of clinics, checking patients in, making sure we have given pre-meds to everyone, and keeping track of whose turn was when. We started a silly trend of putting food and drink words on our name tags, so I feel badly that I forgot their real names. They were wonderful:

One of our patients, waiting for surgery. Just look at those eyes!

Our trip leader Suzanne loves on the hotel's resident kitty Solocito (Little Sun). He showed up shortly before the last World Vets team, who neutered him, came to San Andres, and he just never left. The hotel owners love him, and rumor among the staff is that he sleeps in the bed with them (they live just upstairs of the lobby). That's still pretty unusual for cats on the island though. He's one lucky kitty!

And on to the silly stuff! On our last day with Noel, he took us to a bunch of places around the island, including the "Cave of the Mermaid". I think the original blends in to the rocks much better than I do:

 We found a miniature stage, on which to pose for a group photo:

 Several of us took the opportunity of Caribbean warmth to break out sundresses that we really don't get to wear otherwise (most of us are from Washington, after all, and Nicole is from New York):

 This is the blowhole. I know somebody took pictures while Collette and I were getting soaked by it, but they haven't been uploaded to the Shutterfly account yet. Still pretty cool though:

 On the very last morning, Lesley, Nicole, and I checked in at the airport, and then, since security wouldn't be open for another hour, walked down to the beach (yes, it's that small of an island). While we were walking, we saw a dog - who was still wearing her paper collar from the clinics! This was Street Dog #3 - she was spayed our first day of clinics. Her surgery site was healing well, and there she was, lounging happily on her beach, where she'll never have to feed puppies again. It was incredibly heartwarming to see her, tangible evidence that we really did make a difference.

I had this idea that my blog would really share the experience, and show readers what it was really like to be there, to work the work, to see the Sea, to really be, just be there. But I can't. I can't share the way the tropical evening breeze felt at the end of a long, sweaty surgery day. I can't give you the tension of pushing in a catheter, just so, or the taste of sweet coconut meat, or the smell of the city, pulsing with a different kind of life than we have at home. I can't make you hear the scratchings and whimpers of confused street dogs as they wake up inside a building for the first times in their lives, or the beating of djembe drums and history of Creole pride in the depth of people's voices. The best I can give you is pictures and words - just a glimpse into the experience we had on San Andres. But I hope it's enough.