Animals: Big and Small

Animals are everywhere here. Not just when you go to the countryside do you see them. There's a pair of cows that live in my neighbourhood and seem to graze regularly from the dumpster. (I try not to think about this when I'm eating any meat here) When some of my furniture was moved into my house it was done so by a horse and cart. In the streets of the city it is normal to see people herding groups of goats, donkeys, sheep or cows around, and there's also an unhealthy population of chickens, cats and dogs. I say unhealthy because most of the animals here are not well fed living mostly on a diet of food they scrounge up for themselves with wealthier animal owners feeding their creatures occasionally (mostly the horses though).

I also say unhealthy because the majority of these animals have fleas and this translates to fleas being all over the place. Ride in a vehicle and you'll find a little ring of bites around your waist. I think this is because people don't hesitate to use most vehicles to transport animals. They get in your clothes and ride around with you. Most volunteers regularly dose all the fabric they own with flea killer on a weekly basis and put their bedding out in the sun for awhile for the same reason. I have adapted this policy myself. I take my clothes off as far from my bed as reasonably possible to prevent transporting them into my bedding and so far this has worked. All these preventative measures though don't really help as much as you'd like because no matter what you do unless you regularly spray yourself with fleakiller (not a particularly healthy idea) you're going to get flea bites. Lots and lots of flea bites, most volunteers seem used to it, but I'm not yet, and I feel like my flea bites have flea bites. I guess it's something I'll accustom myself to, but it's not something I want to accustom myself to.