Skip to main content

Working on One CAT, Saving Another

This has been a busy week for Kevin and me. We’ve spent time with Kevin’s counterpart, gotten to know a few nearby towns, planned an English class and spent lots of quality time with our host family. The majority of our time and energy this week however, was divided between two CATs: one on paper, the other furry.

The CAT, or Community Assessment Tool, is the main project we PCVs work on upon arrival to our sites. It’s a huge project that involves a lot of interviews, surveys, investigation, listening, and most of all, patience. In order to gather information for this assessment, we’ve had in-depth conversations with many people in and around our community: the pulpería (corner store) owner, farmers, doctors, teachers, policemen, and the president of our town’s Asociación de Desarrollo, which basically is the town’s governing body. It’s been busy but also extremely helpful in learning about the strengths and weaknesses of this particular village in Costa Rica. It is through this assessment that we will discover how we can be most helpful here.

While this CAT has been on our minds for the last few weeks, another cat came into our lives unexpectedly. While shopping for bikes in Finca 6, the biggest town near us, Kevin and I heard a strange, incessant and desperate meowing sound coming from a dirty and disorderly corner between two stores. I asked the store clerk if there were cats living in the corner and he said no, but there was definitely something back there. It wasn’t long before I couldn’t take it anymore and just had to investigate (you know what they say about curiosity and cats … ). The noise led me to a large, enclosed metal garbage cage with a padlock on it. Inside that metal cage was a grain bag that was moving and meowing.

It didn’t take long for me to find the man in charge of the building and convince him to open up the garbage container. I climbed a latter to fish out the bag (deposited there by the bakery, he said) and carefully untied it. Out stepped a tiny, beautiful, flour-covered kitten. She was terrified of everything and ran skittishly from one hiding spot to the next. The storeowners were angry and the Chinese restaurant owner next door gave me a plastic bag and said, “Take it home!” What else could I do? Leave it there for the same people that tried to kill it? Let it get run over by a car in the middle of the big city? I just couldn’t do that. After all, I had saved its life. So I put her in the plastic bag so her head could stick out, and I hung the bag over the handlebars of my new bike. She rode all the way home just calm as could be. I even think she may have fallen asleep at some point during the journey.

I had a little bit of explaining to do when we got home, but eventually everyone agreed that it was best to let the kitten stay the night in the storage room outside while I looked for a new home for her. The kitten loved it here and I think the boys enjoyed having a pet around – for a while. Kevin named her Golla, the feminine version of Gollo, which is the name of the store we found her at. On Thursday morning, I bathed her and took her to the owner of the pulpería, Adolfo, who agreed to let her live in the pulpería until he could get one of his customers to take her home. By Friday morning, Golla had been adopted by a girl that snuggled and kissed her all the way home. We’re just glad that she’s safe and cared for now after such a traumatic event.

So all in all, it’s been a busy, eventful, and very successful week. One cat saved, one CAT effectively begun.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Two Years Down, Two Months to Go

It’s crazy to think that two years ago today, Kevin and I arrived in Costa Rica. It’s even crazier to think that we only have two more months to go. Our Peace Corps service officially ends Dec. 4, a day that I imagine will be full of mixed emotions — thrilled to be going home to see family, celebrate Christmas and enjoy the beautiful state of Alaska, but sad to leave the pura vida we have lived in Sarapiquí. Little by little, we’re noticing signs that our time here is limited. Just a couple of weeks ago Tico 21 participated in the Close of Service conference, where all of us gathered at the lovely Corobicí Hotel in San José to reflect, celebrate and say farewell to friends and Peace Corps staff members we’ve had the pleasure to get to know. At times it was hard to hold back the tears, knowing our incredible Peace Corps experience will soon be finished. Speaking of farewells, after 20 months of grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation and communicative activities, our c...
1 comment
Read more

Shaking things up

Thanks again to all of you who have written and followed the blog! We hope all of you are doing well and enjoying fall! It sure is nice to be able to email/post every night, but this won't last long. In fact, tonight is probably our last post in a few days. We did, however, get some fantastic news today -- we're headed off to our new host communities tomorrow! We were placed into our language groups this morning, which was a much-awaited event. Kevin was placed into the novice group with 3 other new-to-Spanish volunteers, all of whom have the potential be great friends in the near future. Megon was placed into the advanced group with four other proficient Spanish speakers. We've both already formed great bonds with all of our fellow language group trainees, which is a good thing because we'll be living in the same village as them and taking training classes with them 5-6 days a week.  We got to leave, or "escape" as some have said, our retreat center in the ...
7 comments
Read more

Kids Don't Like to Read

We’ve heard it many times since we embarked on our elementary school library project. Kids here just don’t like to read. A library is a nice idea, we were told told, but don’t expect kids to actually enjoy it. Thank goodness we didn’t listen. Our first classes in the library on Tuesday were a huge success. The fourth and fifth graders filed in first and greatly enjoyed the True Story of the Three Little Pigs. They loved taking their shoes off and snuggling up for story time on the brand new rugs, despite temperatures in the 90s. We discussed the library rules then moved on to free reading time, which was a bigger hit than we’d expected. For almost 20 minutes, all we could hear was the soft whisper of kids reading under their breath and the sound of pages being turned. Next came the first graders. They loved Kevin’s reading of “Is Your Mama a Llama?” and energetically guessed the names of the upcoming animals. They acted out the library rules and spent a peaceful 10 minute...
1 comment
Read more