Rabies and Tuberculosis

Work continues as always in Somoto and to keep you all informed of our health-related efforts, here´s a little post to share some recent activities. This past week, SILAIS (where I work) had a Health Fair to talk about the dangers of Rabies and Tuberculosis. As part of the fair, all of the departmental Health Centers were asked to compete in a mural competition. There was also going to be a best-dressed dog show in which dog costumes were voted on before dogs received their rabies shots.

Matt, as the Peace Corps volunteer at the Centro de Salud in Somoto was asked by his colleague if he could make a mural for the Health Fair. We’re still not sure if he won the first prize or the last prize, because they announced Somoto in both places, but he won a cute little Tuberculosis bag for his efforts J. (In my opinion, his mural was the best.)

Unfortunately, it turns out that the idea of dressing up dogs and parading them around is a bit foreign to Nicaraguans and nobody participated in the dog competition. We were planning on dressing Astro up and bringing him, but an unfortunate set of circumstances led to our decision not to….

The day before the Fair, I was sick. Nothing serious, but I was in bed all day. Matt was supposed to stop by our host family’s house and pick up the two girls after work and bring them to our house to bake (we always make desert on Thursdays). But, he called me at 4:30 to tell me he had bad news: Astro had been with him at work and ran away from the health center, and he couldn’t find him.

So, I dragged myself out of bed, postponed our desert making and movie watching session, and set out to ask every person in the street if they had seen a small white dog, with an almost non-existent tail.

The evening was a very sad one because after 4 hours of looking we still hadn’t found Astro and few people had seen him recently. We were at our wits ends and couldn’t figure out what to do. So Matt decided to sit in front of the health center and wait and I went home to wait and see if Astro returned. The minute I opened the front door, a man rode up on a bicycle. It turned out to be the man who owns Astro’s dad. Astro had been in their house for the whole afternoon! They had called SILAIS to tell me, but because I was sick and at home, I never found out.

So, Astro made it home safe and sound, around 9:30 at night and we didn’t have time to come up with a costume for the next day. But it turned out for the best. How embarrassing if he had been the only dog wearing clothes!

Yes...those balloons were my handiwork. Graduate education hard at work here.

Matt´s award-winning mural (or maybe not - the jury´s still out).

Matt´s competition.