Every year summer arrives the part of the Comarca south of the Cordillera Mountains sometime during the first week of December. Just like in the United States it is an exciting time: children are finishing the school year, corn, beans, yucca and other foods are beginning to ripen, and there is no more mud! According to my journal, summer started this year on December 6 because that was the first time in many months we didn´t have any rain. I am tempted to consider the first day of summer the 5th, though, as that was the night Lela hauled her cooking rocks out from her "kitchen" and into the open air. That night we huddled around the fire and felt the excitement of summer while Lela prepared rice and chicken under the brilliant lights of a full moon and stars. The conversation during dinner focused on fact that seven dogs now spend the majority of their day in my 12´x12´ house.
For most of my first year in site that number fluctuated between a manageable three and five dogs and has held strong at four the past four months. That all changed on November 18 when I woke up to the sound of three whimpering puppies curled up with their mom in the corner of my house. Pregnant Puma finally had her puppies. I was excited and honored she chose my house to have her pups in but Armodio felt differently. Armodio, sixteen and famous for being the family´s best hunter (he´s incredible accurate with a slingshot), said the puppies are no good because Puma is "good for nothing." I understood this to mean she doesn´t hunt (which is true) so I responded, "well she´s really cute - she´s good for looking at. haha." He clearly misunderstood my sarcasm for stupidity (this happens far too often) and before walking away he gave me a quizzical look then chuckled awkwardly. I interpreted this to mean two things: "I´ll never understand Scott" (probable) and "Scott is weird" (definite).
Since the birth of the puppies my days have been filled with excitement and my nights have been filled with a growing melody of animal noises that to my complete lack of surprise is even more annoying than before! To the owls hoot and the frogs burp comes the roosters roost and the cicadas song. The crescendo grows with the dogs bark and the pigs snore (he sleeps against my house) and everything culminates in the screeching sound of three whining puppies.
Despite this and the little piles of puppy poo and pee on my floor, their cuteness and entertainment more than make up for the extra work of cleaning up after them and my lack of sleep. And I am closer to them now because they almost died twice today. In the morning Armodio killed a highly poisonous Coral snake slithering near the house. In the afternoon I noticed my guitar case had become part of a large termite home (this is a painfully clear sign that I need to practice more). I removed the guitar from its cubby and began scraping away the termite home with my machete when a large scorpion began scrambling up the case and toward my hand. I simply shook the case and the scorpion fell to the ground. At this point all I should have needed to do was stomp my foot. I was not that lucky.
Whereas the puppies once stayed curled up in a cute ball of fluff all day in the corner of my house, they now whine and wander around aimlessly. I have to dance around to avoid these adorable miniature moving landmines, two of which happened to place themselves just inches from where the scorpion fell. Of coarse a scorpion strike would kill these fur balls so I acted fast. I scooped up the puppies with my left hand and let my machete take care of the threat with my right.
Such is the level of excitement in Bajo Cerro Name in the Comarca Ngabe-Bugle as we welcome summer into our lives again.
No comments:
Post a Comment