back and tan

today my friend marilyn the shelter vet and i were discussing our next trip, and it got me to thinking about why people like to volunteer. not only do we opt to work for free and cover our own expenses, we're often willing to pay an extra fee to the group we're helping out. are we martyrs? animal lovers? looking for a life less ordinary? or, as marilyn's son puts it, just "do-gooders"? maybe a little of all. ultimately--at least for me--it's self-serving, because knowing i played a part in bettering a life feels pretty sweet. and of course how totally cool it is to make friends with a monkey?!

"Altruism is selfishness out with a pair of field glasses and imagination." - Christina Stead

hola mazatlan

it's 80 degrees, so why are we cold? must be the wind and the cold ocean water. this place is bizarre; hotels and resorts along the beach are huge, and the whole golden zone (along the beach where we are) feels like it was created for tourists. lots of tan gringos wearing senor frog's tee-shirts and drinking beers. not so tropical, feels more like vegas, a manufactured oasis in the desert.


it's our hotel! not. this is one of the swankier places on the strip. we're just pretending that we live here.



the shelter! amigos de los animales is small but surprisingly clean and pretty well functioning -- kennels for the dogs, a communal cat area and a tiny treatment/surgery area. they have a full time vet (they're called "medicos" here), a shelter manager and 2 employees who feed/clean cages/take dogs for walks. also volunteers help when they are available. we met 2 women from canada who fundraise and take some animals back to canada to find them homes. of course since it's latin america it's not as hectic as shelters in the states. they take in about 35 dogs a month and adopt out 25, cats 10 - 15 out and 100 in per month. many of the cats are feral or semi-feral so they do a lot of spay & release, and euthanasia of very old or sick cats. the staff are dedicated and nice and seemed glad to see us, but i felt a little redundant -- i was doing stuff the medico could easily have done himself and he just sat back and watched me, so it seemed like they didn't really need help. hmm, a little confusing. either way they're a good group and their goals are admirable, especially in a town where animal welfare is not a big priority.


el perro azul! this dog and her sister were owned by a local artist who painted them blue.


soaking up some rays


cat room

medico juan surveys the meds i brought


checking the incision of the previous day's neuter


treating an anemic pit mix. sweet dog with white gums. when we left she was still tired but doing alright.


giving IV fluids and glucose to laika, a street dog who had been in residence for 2 weeks and was depressed and anorexic. sometimes when street dogs are brought to the shelter they become depressed because even though it's safe and warm and there's food, they aren't used to being indoors and it weirds them out.

another day at the office

couldn't resist posting pics of these little freaks who came into one of my clinics for dentals yesterday. seriously, don't you just want to eat them??


"we're up to no good"


professional driver on closed course. do not attempt at home.

walk like . . . well, you know

more fun in the spay/neuter clinic! shelter vet and fellow costa rica v'teer marilyn just got back from egypt and she brought us gifts, including these fetching beaded head adornments.


dr. m brings glamour to a cat neuter


officer elvis isn't afraid to wear gold beads with a white tee while i make like the bangles


oh, the humanity

that's me, lazy magoo

since i'm home with a cold today and didn't take any new pics, here's from our fabulous 40th bday party 2 weekends ago.


foxy hubby thad the DJ

collectively we're 160 years old


we're hung over, let's go get udon noodles with fresh straw!

in the meantime, a nod to my pals

to pass the time between v'teer gigs, i'm taking a page from friends and fellow bloggers chris and autumn and posting a picture (or a few) a day. these are from today's hike off the middlefork road in the north cascades.




sheesh, whatta view! the weather was perfect.


we rescued(?) this spider from the snow in the middle of the road. always with the rescuing.


the boys love snow!


primeval-y


lichen meets ice


more crazy lichen


tiny vertical ice on the ground. it's tiny superman's ice fortress.


remember that TV show "tales from the darkside"?

a little further north this time

we're going to mazatlan, mexico next month for a delightful vacation with the family. and what better to do on vacation than volunteer! i'll be at amigos de los animales, helping with surgeries and . . . we'll just have to wait and see when i get there.

bust!

aww, best friends requires full vaccines to go to peru, and my fabulous doctor whom i trust completely says i need another hep B to be full, so no trips south for me this year. oh well, good to know, and good to be prepared. with that in mind, i discovered that the cdc recommends travelers to peru get typhoid and yellow fever vaccines as well as tetanus and the heps. whew. at least some of them are oral.

peru or bust

okay, so i'm waiting to ask my human doctor about hep A & B vaccines so i can maybe go to peru next month. best friends has a satellite clinic in ica (about 300 km south of lima) to treat animals from the recent earthquake.

if you can't get to peru but want to help, you can always send moola.

i also just found this place -- vacation, anyone?

proyecto asis, costa rica, 2007

welcome to asis! a small private wildlife sanctuary/education center near la fortuna in central CR. volunteers work directly with animals and help out around the property. they also offer private spanish classes and do environmental educational outreach to the local community and schools. their goal is to encourage locals to learn to live in harmony with nature and focus on conservation. when we were there they didn't have facilities to house volunteers so we stayed with a host family down the road. all my many pictures live here.


the main asis building as seen from across the pond. the whole place looks pretty much like this, carved out of the jungle so as to make as low an impact as possible.


the porch/classroom/nature viewing/afternoon nap/work table/lunch/coffee break area




resident lora (parrot) giving a lesson in the main room.


dr. marilyn and alvarao del castillo, owner of asis, greeting the 3 resident spider monkeys. locals sometimes take baby monkeys from the wild because they're cute, but then abandon them when they grow up. releasing them is tricky because they become comfortable around humans who use them as target practice. in the case of these guys, they have a better chance of making it in captivity than getting shot while going through someone's garbage. asis's long-range plan is to build bigger more naturalistic exhibits for all its residents.


the home of our host family, sabrina and carlos. they didn't speak a word of english and our spanish is not great, so it was a good thing they were such cool people. we managed to communicate pretty well, with lots of smiling and laughing and looking stuff up in our dictionary. sabrina made all our food, yum. the house was sweet and comfy, and very intimate. the walls didn't reach the ceiling so none of the rooms were soundproof, which was fine except when we came home after they went to bed and had to tiptoe around the house. certainly not a choice for those who aren't comfortable in close quarters with relative strangers, but a great way to experience local culture and make new friends.


sabrina, the cutest woman in costa rica


sabrina's nephew jose-andreas, the cutest kid in costa rica


nena the young howler monkey. her parents were killed and she came to asis as a baby. my baby . . .


helping to build a new ranchito for an outdoor classroom in the jungle on the asis property. the little parrotlet on my shoulder is telling me which big rusty nails to pull out this splintery wood. the red dots on my arm are bites from tiny little black ants that thought i was delicious.


framing the new ranchito


hubby thad the wheelbarrow king



this is benjamin the kinkajou, a nocturnal prosimian. during the day he sleeps in this cat carrier on the upper floor of the central building and at night he gets let out to climb around in the jungle.


hi, we live at asis! raccoon and caiman.




dr. marilyn, me, alvaro and thad

best friends animal sanctuary
kanab, utah
2006














BFAS is the biggest animal shelter in north america, on 2000+ acres in angel canyon in southern utah. they have all kinds of animals -- domestics, farm, exotics -- both for adoption and in sanctuary. also they have a fully functioning vet hospital for the shelter animals and the public. this place rules.

during the recent lebanon/israel conflict, best friends went over to lebanon and rescued a ton of animals, upwards of 100 cats and 200 dogs, some who lost their families and some from the lebanon humane society. they flew them all back to the sanctuary in a big cargo plane and set up a quarantined area (called "little lebanon") on the property away from the main shelter for them to stay and receive medical attention. that's where i worked. these are only a few of my pics; feel free to check out all the photos if the ones below aren't enough.
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the drive from seattle to kanab is about 18 hours if you drive like me, but keep in mind that i got a speeding ticket in northern utah. some of it is really flat and boooring like this . . .



. . . and some of it is really beautiful like this.



little lebanon! these two yurts are full of cats.



the dog runs. so many dog runs.



this was my commute every day from my motel to little lebanon. if only it were scenic . . .


this was my motel, the delightful bob bon inn! nice people, good location, small but clean and cozy rooms. best friends reimbursed me for the room, but i was invited to come out and i don't know if they do that for all volunteers, so i'd check first.


welcome to your clinic! we put together a veterinary truck by rooting through all these random supplies.



our "clinic" before . . .



. . . and after. note the cutest/tiniest gas anesthesia machine ever, aawwww. one prep table and one little sx table, and portable cages for patients. not fancy but certainly adequate. we closed the back of the van during procedures, then opened it because the lights we used were super hot and the van would get like an oven.


i'm ready to get spayed, guys.


took a day off to go hiking in zion nat'l monument. holy cow, that place is amazingly beautiful. i could only go on 2 hikes but could have spent the whole time there and still not seen it all.


hike #2 in zion. imagine this all around you with hawks calling and yummy fresh mountain air and little disney animals on your shoulder...


hello, i'm an anole


inside the cat yurt. generally we'd do surgery in the morning, then after lunch do med checks and random treatments on the dogs, then the cats in the afternoon/evening. here we're cleaning ears.


time out for a little kitty party! all the animals we treated were put into adoption after their surgeries and quarantine.