RUFMITA organization for the protection of animals

I am constantly talking about dogs, street dogs, Winnie, my sister's dog, any dog. Everyone around me knows how much I love dogs, even my students. Well I don't know if you've traveled to a 3rd world country, but living in one I see about 100 street dogs a day. Seriously. Sitting in the taxi - on the way to school - walking to the store - anywhere I go - there are street dogs. I've told you before how much my heart breaks every time I see a skinny, starving dog, but reality is that there isn't much I can do except donate money to a couple of good organizations, bring scraps with me on my walks, and just stop to give some love to the pups. I've come to accept that my small actions do make a bit of a difference, but the ugly truth is that I cannot save all the street dogs. I've actually come to believe that the love, the pets, and talking to the dogs that I give are more valuable than a scrap of food, especially in Santa Cruz where the pups are getting lots of trash scraps, but they have mites, ticks, viruses that prevent them from putting on weight.

So, you know that I teach kids that are "well to do" in their community. They have drivers that bring them to school in a brand new Mercedes SUV, they live in huge complexes with a 10 bedroom house, in general they are a bit sheltered to the realities of their city. I'm not sure if their car windows are so tinted that they can't see the trash accumulating on their streets and in their water canals, or that they have just become so used to it that they no longer notice. I often wonder how they can go grocery shopping in the vomit smelling store, but then realize they send their maids shopping. Whatever, it doesn't matter, what matters is that they don't think of their city as 3rd world.

On Friday, a group of my students headed to a local hospital where the doctors without borders have come to do surgeries on kids with cleft palates, i.e. Operation Smile. I love that our school gives the students an opportunity to help with such causes. The students will go for a few hours to the hospital where there is NO a/c, and help translate for the doctors who travel from all over, but especially the US to help.

Right after school on Friday my phone rings, and since I get about 2 phone calls a month, I am surprised and pick it up to hear a student's voice.

"Hi miss, it's me. We are just leaving Operation Smile and we FOUND two street dogs. We need your help! Can we bring them to your house? We want to save them. Can you help us?"

Me: "Uh, wait, you do realize that there are 10,000 street dogs in your community, right?"

Student: "Come on miss, help us."

Me: "No, I can't take those dogs, I'm leaving for spring break in a few weeks!"

Student: "Oh, come on, miss, they are street dogs you can leave them for a week without food."

Good thing I'm not a travel agent...

I have a problem booking plane tickets. Seriously. For some unknown reason I can not seem to make an online reservation without either A. booking the flight backwards, i.e. the destination becomes the origin or B. booking the wrong dates. What is wrong with me? I don't have time for you to answer that, so please don't try.

My most recent debacle was discovered when Laura asked me to tell her which dates I was leaving Chicago and heading to Denver. I looked at my itinerary and said, Tuesday, June 14, wait, JUNE? Hold on, huh? Oh crap. How did I book the flights for the wrong MONTH? Are you kidding me? The nice people at American Airlines only charged me $160 to change the tickets to July. RUFMITA.

Body Map

My Bolivia tattoo turned out way more fantastic that I could have imagined. My body map is coming along and so far I have 5 countries represented: the U.S., Burma, Thailand, Peru and Bolivia. 

I love designs that have lots of different images in them and you have to look closely to see what you can find. My Bolivia design has a toucan that I love!

I'm already thinking about my Dominican Republic tattoo. I'm also pondering if I should get something when I go to Rio for spring break. 

Hello hello to the distance

I don't know about you, but I have this nasty habit of destroying relationships before I move from a place. In 39 years I've had 38 different houses, obviously not in different states or countries, but I have moved back and forth from Colorado to NC a few times, and in the past 4 years lived in three different countries, and well each time I have this pattern of picking fights or nitpicking relationships, both with boys and girls to the point that by the time I move I am so relieved to be out of there and away from those people. Since wisdom comes with age and eventually aren't we supposed to learn from our mistakes, I've really become aware of this little technique of mine and I want to stop it. Bolivia, specifically Santa Cruz, has been a pain in the ass to live in, and the school is a school with all the political crap that comes along with it, but I've really enjoyed the students. You know that. I talk about them a lot. Well, I can see myself beginning to distance myself. They are doing it too. They know I am leaving and I can feel the change between us. It's hard to imagine anyone older than you was once your age, but I was the biggest jerk when I was 15. I know what that looks like. It doesn't hurt my feelings that they are pulling away, it's normal human behavior. What does hurt is that I'm repeating the same pattern and pulling away too. I don't want to do that this time around. I want to pull my suitcase away from this house and feel good about the times I spent with the people here.