Severance Package

Organizing a 'Castration Clinic' was never on my list of things to do as a TEFL volunteer, but when a volunteer from a site near mine went home, she left me some resources and contacts to organize one in my community. I waited a long time before starting on the project, mostly because teaching 5 days a week leaves me too tired to do much besides be with my host family and read, but during summer vacation (mid-December through mid-February) I went to the vet and found a place to host it. The requirements were surprisingly sparse (water, electricity, something to put up to keep the owner from seeing the dog) and I decided against using the school kitchen (too many committees to go through, and some serious health concerns), and instead chose the Salon Comunal, a rotting wooden structure more reminiscent of a ghost town saloon than a community center. Getting the keys was very easy, though hardly necessary, and the day before the clinic) I went down to prepare the surgery. When I got there I had to excavate about six inches of dirt to get to the water, and confront a giant switch that seemed to spark and shake ominously whenever tried to use it. After clearing some brush away from the door with a machete and cleaning up decorations from a quinceañera I had been to in September, I strolled down to the ocean for a swim, and declared it a successful Valentine's Day, barely mindful of the irony that the next day I would be fulfilling the role of an anti-cupid.



The moment I realized that things would not go as I had planned is hard to pin down, but a definite sinking feeling dropped over me as I came jogging back towards the Salon Comunal with the first dogs of the day, and ran into a herd of cows who instinctively lowered their horns and started huffing while the valiant dogs strained on their rope leashes dragging terrified owners closer to a bovine doom. The moment passed when a group of cowboys rode up whooping and hollering, lashing out with sticks and whips, and the sullen cows started forward. With that first group of dogs came a wonderful woman and her daughter who became the nurses, leaving me the role of receptionist/pharmacist/accountant.



I watched the first couple of operations with interest, marveling at how the veterinarian found the ovaries so quickly, and at how the two nurses unblinking mopped up blood and held the (unconscious) dogs down. Soon I was pulled away by my organizational duties, keeping a weather eye on the appointments and the funds. This would occupy me for the rest of the day, along with one other task: manning the recuperation room.

As the dogs began to recover from the anesthetics they had completely different reactions if they were male or female. The female dogs would shake silently for fifteen minutes, but once they could hold their heads up straight they would stand and begin walking around, ready to go. The male dogs would open their eyes and immediately begin howling and yelping, expressing their woe and causing most owners to come close to tears. They recovered within a half-hour, and began to hobble about until they forgot about the pain. Still, when three or four male dogs were recovering together they would set each other off and the rising and falling harmonies and dissonance was chilling.



The first castration I saw I was puzzled by the intricate series of cuts the doctor made on the testicle before simply popping it out like a grape (at this point in the operation several dogs jumped, even through the sleep produced by four anesthetic shots). I asked him why he made four incisions before removing it, and his response was simply "There is also the whole-ball technique." I had to leave to avoid guffawing. At one point a female dog woke up during the surgery, and without batting an eyelid the doctor put in another shot and kept removing the ovaries. The consummate professional.

As the afternoon wore on the dogs that came were no longer completely fasted. No one out here provides drinking water for their dogs, they simply let the dog drink out of whatever old tire or open sewer is nearby. The vet dealt with full bladders by anesthetizing the dogs, then pressing on their kidneys. Without fail the sleeping dogs began to pee, the first time the vet had not prepared anything so it simply peed on the floor, after that we were all a little more cautious. The trashcan that all the organs and urine went into was a gift basket from the quinceañera, and since trash collection here is spotty at best, I realized as I put in a trash bag outside that dogs and vultures would be sharing some odd meals in the coming days.