‘Twas a few days before Christmas and it wasn’t snow but a light traffic that covered the roads to San Martin Jilotepeque, a town in mountainous Guatemala. After many twists and turns in between steep walls of soothing green, the town of San Martin Jilotepeque is surprisingly buzzling and urban. A cacophony of sounds and colours hits you in the face with motorcycles whooshing by with women in their indigenous dress apparently comfortable sideways on the backseat. Chicken busses honk, rev and roar on the narrow streets covered in bright signs, posters and banners. If you don’t have a specific reason to go there, you probably won’t. But we were on a mission.
See, San Martin Jilotepeque is the town where Cristy Velasco lives and works. Cristy is the patron saint of street dogs in that part of the world and cares for over a hundred dogs in her shelter, not counting the twenty or so she has at home, the dozen that stay at her restaurant or the never-ending number of strays that she feeds. So, after an eventless journey, we went by Cristy’s restaurant to pick her up to direct us to the shelter, only a ten-minute drive away.
Well, not today. The asphalt of the road near the shelter was being renewed and
we got stuck in a humongous traffic jam. After sitting put for about 45 minutes
(entertained by a puppy that Cristy had just rescued off the street), we
decided to park the car at a carwash across the road, walk to the shelter and
then return to the restaurant to drop off our donations. And that turned out to
be a very good idea, because on our way back, the line had barely moved an
inch.
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| On our way to "the end of the world..." |
The shelter is located on the outskirts of town, right there where you think you’ve reached the end of the world. It consists of two wooden / aluminium sheets structures with kennels divided by chain-link fences. The kennels are clean but bare, with just one wooden pallet for the dogs to sleep on.
Cristy at the shelter
This is not a shelter as
you know them up North or in Europe. This is a place where, with all efforts
and good intentions, the dogs are dry, safe and fed, but not much else. All
because Cristy does this basically singlehandedly, on a shoestring budget. Just
the cost of feeding al those dogs is staggering, not to mention medical costs.
So Cristy can use all the help she can get and that’s why we went up there with
a few bags of food, dog beds, used collars and leashes, cleaning supplies, some
cash and a bag of bulky sweaters that can be used for beds.
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| Cristy had to stop on the way back to buy some food for some street dogs we encountered. |
After a
delicious lunch at Cristy’s restaurant it was time to head back. During our
ride home I already received pictures from Cristy of the donated bed and collar
being put to good use. She had even made puppy sweaters out of the sleeves of
the cardigans we had left. Darn cute!
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| Puppy Sweater, design by Cristy Velasco! |
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| Dog bed and red collar approved!!! |
The idea to
go to San Martin Jilotepeque to drop off donations was a fantastic one, and all
credits go to Catherine Corry, who not only offered to drive, but also supplied
much of the donations. Many thanks too to Ana Maria Ackermans, Irene Saletan,
Ellen Cristenson, Linda Green, Unidos para los Animales, Alice Lai, Cat Langley
and Catherine’s friend whose name I forgot.
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| Today's donations. |
Donations pup approved! 
One very tired but lucky puppy....
Thank you
so much!
Wooof!!!
