Happy Birthday Roy and Suzanne and Sami and Colleen.
Today we are leaving La Posada del Monje and the amazing Maria Cristina Lugones and her 55 dogs. It turned out to be an incredible 2 weeks, more than we could ever have expected. It was also a lot of very hard work.
Our days were often like this: 8am – wake up and go to the kitchen for coffee and bread..during which time haley will be taking chicken meat off 7-8 carcasses(cooked with salt and oregano every night) and mixing it into the gigantic pot with 15.5 pounds of rice for the dog’s breakfast, 830 am – start feeding the dogs and continue feeding the dogs for about 1.5 hours. They get fed 4 at a time and you gotta watch that they don’t try to steal from each other – most of them finish in about 12 seconds flat. Sometimes I help with the dogs, and other times I am feeding the pigs and wild boars or broken-legged horses, trying to fix a whole in the cage where the dogs are now escaping, working on Cristina’s computer so that it runs faster and better for her, setting up or updating profiles on volunteer websites to get Cristina more helpers like us, running to the store to buy the 7 pounds of lettuce a day it takes to feed the 20+ birds, etc. After feeding, haley is often patting dogs or giving a sick dog medicine or wound treatment, or cleaning out the dormitorios or going to the store or cutting vegetables for lunch or breaking up a dog fight or… I would keep fixing things or do more to get the ancient computer to work better or make sure that the hotel had water or clean the pool or…
Anywhere between 1:30 and 4pm we would find the time to sit down and have a nice lunch. After that, we would do the dishes and if there weren’t any guests in the hotel (which there were for 4 days of Easter – which was NUTS) we even got to take a siesta. Wake up at 5pm, have some tea and bread and then back to work. At 7pm’ish the dogs got fed again and then put to bed (a roughly 1.5 hour process again), the boars and pigs and horses get their dinner, and then we gotta make dinner. But to make dinner you gotta have food. So off to the store again (our best guess is that there were at least 6 trips to the store per day from La Posada workers) . Dinner around 10 or 11pm with some wine or beer to wind down after a hectic day and then bed time or as we say at La Posada, Chau Pesacado.
our first asado and it was good.
haley fitting right in at the bolivian carnaval in san carlos
haley and cristina, a match made in heaven.
This is what we did, and the good part is that every day you really felt like you were making a big difference. Haley loves her animals and she got to love and love and love them some more for 2 weeks. I got to be there to watch and fix stuff which I also like. Cristina, the owner of the Posada is one in a million and makes it all happen every day forever. While you would think someone who has over 80 animal lives in her care would be running some sort of rescue foundation with help from the government and/or donors, you’d be surprised to know that all the work and love just comes from one gigantic heart. She gets no financial donations at all and while she has occasional workawayers like us – the only physical help she has are two great sisters – Anabel and Maribel – who live and work at the Posada, and are also paid by Cristina. Almost all of the dogs are strays, rescued from the streets of San Carlos. Crisitina nurses them back to health with love, and medical care when needed, spays or neuters them, and then gives them a home for the rest of their lives. What she does and who she is, are remarkable. (If anyone knows anyone who – or if anyone reading this blog – wants to donate their time or anything financial to Crisitina’s efforts, please let us know. She is trying to start a foundation but until then, the financial burden remains entirely on her.)
Team La Posada
Now we are on the bus leaving the little town of San Carlos and heading to try out our first Couch Surfing at Alejandro’s house in a place near the city of San Luis. It was sad to say goodbye to Cristina and her dogs and our time there and we hope we get to see everyone again one day.
Other notes:
Often during meals at La Posada, a chair was provided at the table for some dog or another.
The pitbull Nani tried to eat Gabe on 2 separate occasions – luckily she was malnourished as a puppy and has very few teeth. Plus it was Gabe’s fault. He surprised her in her very own kitchen.
The two parrots ate in the kitchen in the morning and nightly for their meal time – some of their favorite treats were cloves of garlic and ground beef. They got warm tea for breakfast and before bed time.
Everyone at La Posada tripped in the kitchen over Lucas the blind cocker spaniel at least twice daily.
The litter of four puppies that Crisitina recently nursed back to health (sadly she lost 3 out of the 7) had to be expelled from the kitchen approximately 14 times a day. The general rule was for every 2 you got out, one escaped back in. The average amount of time with no puppies in the kitchen was 15.2 minutes. (By the way, little was cuter at La Posada than puppy feeding time.)
Some dog names that Haley can remember off the top of her head: Andrea, Ingrid, Julian, Chiquita Banana, Teti, Raul, Flaca, Lucas, Lucho, Claudia 1, Claudia 2, Nani, Florenzia, Anabela, Ana Maria, Caramelo, Cara Dura, Roberto, Blanca, Samira, Michela, Mario, Panchita, Selva, Sebastian, Julia, Maria Teresa, Laline, Susy, Felipe, Victoria (RIP), Milena, Carola, Rubia, Pelucita, Blanquita, Juana, Anteojitos, Mamacita, Coco and Diego.
We went through about 3 loaves of bread daily. Half of that was consumed by humans, the other half was fed to dogs from the table.
We both cried in the taxi on the way to the bus station when we left.
Haley wrote part of this blog post.
Here are a bunch of stupid but cute dog videos if you are bored at work – Lucho might have been Haley’s favorite dog.
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