Pictures of the whole family

I know I didn't have my camera with me when I posted the Menagerie story, so here they are along with some others.....

    

 The kittens, all four, snug as bugs in a rug (or one my bed blanket). This is the day after they opened their eyes and started moving around. Fatso is the big one second from the left, Crybaby is the white and gold one next to him, Suicidal (kept jumping off the bed) is the farthest to the right and Smartypants is the farthest to the left.

 The box of recycled newspapers and magazines the gosh-darn termites got to while I was away in Managua for the last medical visit.

 My other pets, the bats. They were in my house before I got there and I like to think they keep some of the mosquito population down. They are kind of cute and little, and if they could just manage to stop flying RIGHT by my head, we could live in perfect harmony.

 And this is Sombra, the 4 month old puppy I adopted when I got back from my last medical visit. I knew that I was getting more and more discouraged with the little I was able to get done before getting sick again, so I thought I might try at least taking care of some animals to pass the time. I will admit that that was one of my favorite weeks before leaving for the States, just bottle feeding the kittens and training Sombra (Spanish for Shadow) while listening to iTunes podcasts. Oh, and Sombra likes to sleep anywhere....literally anywhere.

She made that box home all by herself. I just added the old piece of blanket. Sombra came from a typical Nica house with no leashes or dog houses, so anything is like the Ritz compared to living on the floor. After washing 3 times with the anti-everything soap, I let her hop up and sleep with me when she started whining during a storm. She fits right under my arm on my single bed.

The watchful guardian. She guards the house and protects it from other dogs and chickens, etc. For the first week, she was super submissive and I couldn't get her to leave the house. I had to yank her around on a leash, then I just carried her in my shoulder bag. After a few days like that, she just doesn't want to leave me, so she follows me everywhere, even to my neighbors' house and the latrine. Devotion.