SolMate Santiago

Log #81 September, 2009

Ha! Fooled You

Updated Tuesday, 29 September, 2009

Nadia presenting at the rabies conference

For two weeks Dra. Gaby, Dra. Nadia and (Nurse) Diana let Stan believe he was presenting the "We Are PATA" pitch at the rabies awareness conference.

Stan's the PATA Manzanillo, AC president and Nadia is the secretary (AC, asociación civil). So say the papers filed with the government. Stan assumed that the rest of the group wanted the prez to speak.

He had notes, he practiced.

At the conference, Nadia jumped up and made the presentation. They're such kidders!

Out of the Closet...

Updated Sunday, 27 September, 2009

Friends of PATA Manzanillo logo

Our new group came out of the closet this week. Here's our new website with all of the particulars about the group.

This is a huge endeavor for us, mostly for Stan as the prez -- I'm just doing my normal stuff as webmaster/editor. Stan's been working on the incorporation, and now the request for 501(c)(3) tax-exempt non-profit status, for two solid months.

The whole purpose is to help donors in the US (and in a little while, Canada) to support animal welfare programs in Manzanillo while still getting tax deductions. So many folks come here for vacation, on their own and on cruise ships, and they see the huge numbers of animals roaming our streets and they've wondered what can be done about the problem. Now there's a vehicle for them to help.

Please spread the word about Friends by contacting your own friends, and relatives, too (like we did...and we haven't been disowned, yet). We're compiling a mailing list for folks who'd like to stay in touch about our animals issues.

...And into the Spotlight

World Day of Prevention and Rabies Awareness

Monday, 28 September, is World Day of Prevention and Rabies Awareness. Our local animal group, PATA, of which Stan is also president (and not to be confused with Friends, a US corporation), will celebrate the day by participating in a seminar at the state capitol, Colima. The emphasis of the seminar is sterilization of pets as a means of controlling zoonoses.

Stan will be the mouthpiece, which ought to be a huge challenge for both speaker and listener! Stan will be reading from his notes and following the Power Point slides.

I can't attend. It's by invitation only. Snobs.

Back to Work, You Slugs

Updated Tuesday, 22 September, 2009

Dra. Gaby, Nadia, Diana y yo
-- beach clean-up or goofy hat day?

The sun wasn't above the hills, yet, but a bunch of us PATA volunteers were already milling around the embarcadero, readying ourselves for a bit of work of a different kind. Dra. Gaby had signed our animal group up to scour the beach along with various other Manzanillo groups. We lucked out and drew a very clean portion of shoreline in the hotel district.

Everyone donned gloves, grabbed a trash bag,
and trundled off down the beach, ending at the collection point a couple hours later

By the time the sun had reached its swelter point, we were ready to turn in our trash and let the kids separate and count. The whole point of the counting was to ascertain how much of what kind of trash found its way to the beach. Facts and figures will be turned in to the community powers-that-be, who will then try to influence restaurants, retailers, packagers and vendors, asking them to change the way they send their goods out the door.

The preponderance of cast offs in my big black bag were styrofoam, rebar and broken bottles. Hm, what kind of strategy would prevent the spread of that kind of flotsam?

Not into obsessing, Stan and I left the young, energetic school kids to ponder the questions and to count the trash. We skipped off to a wonderful breakfast of chilaquiles and then shopped for clinic supplies.

We looked like a bowling team in our matching PATA shirts, bellied up to the medical supply counter. As the nice lady rang up our box of catheters, she said that she knew of PATA and our work with animals, and that since we were buying supplies for the spay/neuter clinic, we could have a nice, deep discount.

Aaaahh, the PATA word's getting out. We've touched lots and lots of neighborhoods. Look at this updated map of where we've held clinics.

I get so jazzed with this map. PATA is now averaging two mobile mini-clinics (30 animals spayed or neutered) per month.

Now that school's back in session, our cadre of kids is back, and they're awesome volunteers. Fourteen through sixteen, they move right in and take over big responsibilities. They monitor the recovery room, take temps, check heartrates and breathing, treat fevers and chills, and generally make sure that each animal is as safe and comfortable as possible. They're also gung-ho help in surgery, as well as great garbage counters -- many of our PATA volunteers are up to their elbows in the picture, above.

Our vet school graduates are making an impact in the community, as well. Here are some shots of a tumor that one of the recent grads tackled. Not a normal surgery that we'd perform at a PATA clinic, but fascinating....

A Boxer prepped for surgery. When standing, her tumor
had hung nearly to the ground, a cantaloupe-size growth that impeded her mobility

This tumor grew out of the dog's chest.
Before it could be excised, each vessel attached to it had to be tracked down and isolated

Chasing the tumor and clamping off the blood vessels

Four hours later, stitching her up

PATA Beach Party

Updated Tuesday, 13 September, 2009

Setting up shade and surveying the beach

Last Sunday, the PATA clinic crew, and friends, took a break from surgeries and fled to the beach.

Through the magic of FaceBook, we're sharing more beach pictures.

Old codgers that we are, we're just now getting the hang of using Facebook (but still don't "get" the Twitter thing).

The same PATA crew also has a Facebook page, and Twitter, too. Amazing. We're not really sure how to use the pages to their best advantage, yet.

And speaking of PATA, it's that time of year that we send our pet pictures to the calendar contest. Best pictures go into the calendar. Gale (July, 2007) and Chivo (January, 2008) have both been featured.

Our poster boys, Gale (1 year) and Chivo (7 weeks)

Now it's Picudo's turn.

Picudo at 3 months and one year ... see how they grow

Bodega/Oficina

Updated with another pic, Sunday, 13 September, 2009

Office, room with a view of the front room and new curtains

Work table on the right
impossible to use, crowded out by stuff

Problem: limited storage space

Problem: office space shared with sleeping space, but sleeping schedules not coinciding

Solution: do something with the third bedroom

Imperceptibly, the third bedroom had been gathering cages, equipment and supplies for the mobile spay/neuter clinics. Pretty soon, the whole room was overrun with stuff and the whole concept of work room and store room seemed self-exclusive. There was no room.

Work table head on, built into
the closet, space for new shelves to the right

Two ready-made shelves and one self-constructed set made a huge difference in maneuvering space. Cages and boxes were pile 3-stories high, and others were moved into the hallway while Stan constructed a set of shelves back in the corner behind the door.

Most of the cages, disassembled and nested, fit into the new corner shelves. AND there's now room to set up our third bed (Stan's alternate desk). A bike hangs on the wall above the bed, with a gardener's hat hanging from the handle bars.

Stan's office fits into one corner,
a bed's in the other, shelves line two walls, and hey! there's floor space in between.

Sala full of clinic boxes and mats

Even with all of that extra storage space in the bodega, the overflow spills into the front sala, and the van, where the operating tables are stacked.

I guess we should design a storage unit ... hmm, with a potting shed attached?

Jimena Hovering

Updated Wednesday, 2 September, 2009

Wind chart of Jimena, Wednesday afternoon

Predicted path, Wednesday afternoon

Jimena tripped lightly past Manzanillo (dotted line), leaving nothing more than gray skies and drizzles.

Our resident weather forecaster has been providing the cruising fleet updates, day and night. Each time NOAA updates their info, Stan sends it out in text so that the boats up in the Sea can pick it up via their SSB radios.

Reports are coming back from a few of the hurricane holes in the Baja's midsection; Conception Bay is seeing 70 knot winds, as is Puerto Escondido. No word from farther north where the majority of the fleet is hunkered down.

Prepared for the worst, hoping for the best, our buddies up north want to receive up-to-date info about the when and where of the hurricane, and Stan's one of the only sources who transmits written data. He's having one heckuva time sending out good info this afternoon because the prediction models don't agree. They're all over the map.

The good news for everyone is that the longer Jimena hovers over land, the more energy she'll bleed off. She's been downgraded to a Cat 1 since going ashore. Hopefully, she'll keep dying.

SolMate Santiago contact: mj(at)solmatesantiago(dot)com