First of all, CHEERS FOR THE US OF A GOING DEMOCRATIC!!! And special cheers for Massachusetts for electing the second black governor in US history, and to my son for helping it happen.
Re: Jim's jaw. It's actually getting better: two more visits to the curandera and several massages (only of his jaw) from the ondontista and a visit to a maxillofacial specialist who has assured him there is no permanent problem, and it is showing steady signs of iimproving. There are a number of reasons it may have happened but it appears impossible to know which it was. In the process, we have found two friends in the dentista and the ondontista. Americans have commented to us in the past that they found health care here wonderful, maybe not in the sense of fancy offices and equipment, but in the sense that providers are not only skillful and profesional, but kind and warm and concerned. We join the list of Americans who have experienced this. I suspect this might compensate in the healing process for an extra medication or fancy waiting room or whatever.
And then there's Gacho, Blanca's dog who is also doing very well. Blanca is a lovely almost-fifteen year old who lives across the street from us. I told some of you about her. She is a very bright girl, very pretty, and rather sad. A story out of a telenovela: her mother is illiterate and very poor. She had a daughter after Blanca after wedlock so her husband left her. So somehow she ended up in a little wooden house with a dirt floor across the street from us. Blanca, who is definitely smart as well as pretty, dropped out of the local school because apparently she got ganged up on -- for her mother's poverty, rumors about her that were not true (we'd know if they were) and so forth. SHe's come over fairly often for some substitute school work and some English lessons.
Anyway, Gacho. Gacho is her beloved little dog, a found dog that her mother had let her keep. Gacho sleeps in a cardboard box next to Blanca and her sister's bed. One day I went out to do something and there was Blanca putting Gancho on the sidewalk. He was wrapped in a little piece of satin cloth. He was shivering, she said. He needed to get warm. A couple of months ago, someone had run over Gacho's foot. He seemed all right for quite a while, though the foot was pretty useless. But rather suddenly, Gacho had gotten terribly sick. I thought he was going to die, but I told Blanca I would take her and Gacho to our vet. Of course Blanca had no money for such a luxury as a visit to the vet wounded pet -- let alone a doctor if she gets sick. Anway, to make a long story short, Gacho now has three legs, but he is very healthy -- he's been dewormed and de-flead as well. He is full of beans and also likes to visit us which gets Jim a little nervous.
And Blanca is going to spend the weeks with some members of her family in a small town a bus ride from here where she can go to school can escape the gossip and be with people she knows and cares about. Jim and I will help her catch up on weekends as she needs.
So for now things are better for Blanca and Gacho.
Next post: Day of the Dead.