Woof

Dear friend,
The smells of the dog shelter overwhelmed me. I tried taking shallow, slow breaths to avoid having to experience the reality of the shelter in full. But my gasp at what I saw meant taking in one huge, strong gulp of putrid air.
Yesterday was my first day volunteering with the Asociacion de Ayuda al Animal Abandonado… roughly, “the association to help the abandoned animal.” The group takes in, cares for, and adopts out about 15 dogs at any given time. Their facility is a small shack in the corner of the University of Chile’s Veterinary School campus. I was naively expecting a fully enclosed facility with tile floors, a drainage system and maybe some coveralls or aprons for the volunteers. The reality is that, with such little funding and the formation of animal rights in Chile a relatively young, progressive idea, the organization can’t afford a lot of what we would consider “necessities.” But, the reality also exists that the dogs there are fed and given water, they have shelter, and most importantly, they have people to show them love and a chance at being adopted out into a home.
The kennels are small and dirty. Each kennel has a small door that leads to an outside pen where the dogs normally eliminate. The recent rain meant that we new volunteers got to clean up a lovely mixture of mud, feces and urine using brooms and dustpans. Because the outside pen is a flat piece of earth, water sits and stagnates instead of running into a drain or downhill somewhere. It was honestly one of the most disgusting things I’ve ever had to do. To walk in feces and inhale and be a part of that environment was difficult. But to think that these dogs have to live in these conditions was appalling. But then, I got to thinking that in spite of these conditions, the dogs at the shelter have food, a dry place to sleep when it rains, and they have a group of volunteers who sincerely care for the dogs individually. Plus, they have a higher likelihood of finding a permanent home with the shelter than they do on their own roaming the streets for scraps and digging through trash. Each dog is named, has their own personality, and has to be treated accordingly.
After cleaning their kennels, we fed the dogs, gave them water, and then took them for walks. Each dog gets a minimum of 15 minutes of one-on-one time with a volunteer. It was fun to take a few dogs out around the campus. It’s hard work there, but I’ll probably work there one or two days a week for the semester. I just hope I can keep up the energy to be committed.
Also, next week I start my English Opens Doors job. I say job like I’m getting paid for it, but it’s also a volunteer position. I’ll be working in under-resourced public schools with an English teacher helping her to develop lesson plans and activities that can support language and culture exchange with her students. Of course I’ll be in the classroom, too, helping with pronunciation and helping out in other general ways. I’m pretty excited for it.
In other news, it turns out that I won’t be running at nationals here in Chile. Whatever organization governs intercollegiate athletics requires that foreign students be in the country for a year or more before competing. But I’m still planning on training with the group and running in some open races. It’s probably for the best in all honesty. Running has a way of taking over your life very quickly and very easily, and I’m not sure if I’m I a position to want that right now. Until I can find the balance between training/competing and being able to fully experience this study abroad adventure, running will move further down the list of my priorities… at least in comparison to where it has been for the past 6 years.
I have also come to the difficult conclusion that life in another city is just that… life. It’s not a vacation or a break from drama or whatever I could have possibly escaped back home. Life for me is busy and quick and full of mistakes. But for every mistake and failure, there is one more opportunity to stand up and grow. The only challenge I face is to define life. What does it mean to live?

“I am not a thing, a noun. I seem to be a verb, an evolutionary process, an integral function of the universe.” –Richard Buckminster Fuller