Little house of horrors

I need to share with you what I found when I came home from work today.

First, there was a trail of water from the back terrace to the bathroom. It is raining a little, maybe it rained a lot before in Jimena, so it must be the roof, again, dripping water in a way that probably a lot of the rich and famous pay money for and call a water feature in thier homes,, we get the joy for free every time it rains. But this time it was different.



I went to investigate the drip.

I found Harry in the bathtub in his underwear standing on a matress. The matress from the car that the dog had vomitted on last week. He had decided to wash it, in the tub, by binding it up with two belts (so it would fit he said) and soaking it with the hose. He was now in his third rinse phase of the project and feeling like he had quite refined this, technique of jumping up and down on the matress, like he was pressing grapes, during the previous 3 hours of washing and rinsing.

He had however miscalculated two things. According to Harry, the matress is like a sponge, and when placed on end (this bit is important, it must be ON END for maximum performance), through capillary action the matress will absorb water to a point. The point at which gravity overpowers capillary action. Gravity is strong, therefore, when placed ON END, the matress should dry, mostly. For the past 2 hours we have been testing this new theory, because it is raining outside and will rain all weekend, and two the matress, when soaked with water is too heavy to lift out of the bathtub. This morning I was happy that we decided to move because as I took my shower the hot water ran out, as it tends to do and the shower curtain leaked about 50% of the water out as it tends to do, and the roof was leaking as it also tends to do and I thought great, soon no more water problems. But Harry and his daily projects will never leave me time to be complacient. Now I wish for the things I had this morning because I think tomorows shower will be a lot more difficult. The matress not being on end, being the most minor of the problems I see here.

So I decided to have a drink. This day called for something special. I know what your thinking... If only I had decided on something warm, a glass of red wine, and my evening would have turned round then and there. But I didn't I wanted German apple juice. I opened the fridge and discovered yet another reason to love our little house in Jimena.

Harry did however brighten my day. he fixed the remote fridge door and told me that the last mouse is gone.

The overwhelming smell of wet dog

This is not about what you think...



On Wednesday to Morocco with 60 14 year olds. Can you think of anything worse? If you think it was a vacation, you have clearly never been on a trip organized by a Moroccan, or with 60 teenagers.

Don't get me wrong, the kids were great, as we stood in the middle of a street, at the top of a BIG hill after walking (I know this because my cell phone counts the steps I take) 8000 steps, no one complained. It was 8 pm, the children had no eaten since 12, and there was a 2 hour time change, so belly time was actually 10 pm. They stood in the street and chatted with thier new Moroccan friends; they seemed not to notice teachers (or teacher instructions) or the fact that they had not eaten in 8 hours. Not a small feat for teenagers. Oh and did I mention is was raining?





We all piled into an orphanage for boys, and the only thing I could smell was wet dog, on an empty stomach. Over 80 children, ours and thiers, wet, hungry and tired, in standing room only. There seemed to be nothing organized, our kids looked at thier kids, they looked at us, wonderfully akward. Then one of our students offered to sing a song, then one of the orphan children sang, then a few people sang together, then we all taught each other songs. A cold wet room turned very warm very quickly.

The students were all taken home to Moroccan families, where they got to eat with thier hands, and see how thier new friends lived, some students didn't get to eat much because the families didn't have much to give, other families made only Spanish food to try to make the students feel at home. Every student came back with a different story, so did every teacher.



This is my story. The kids, despite being royal pains in the neck, staying up till 3 in the morning, making all the other hotel guests crazy, wanding off, talking when they should be listening etc etc etc.. They were still fantastic. They accepted everything and looked at everything with wonder. They started nervous and came home confident about simple things like trading money and haggling in the market and big things like talking to and making friends with people who look very different. There are a lot of adults that still havn't learned that. It's a trip we all should take.

Paula the dog who wouldn't bark

Harry, who you all know or will get to know over the course of this blog, and I have been thinking about getting a dog for a long time. We didn't because living in Hannover, in a 5th floor apartment is just not a nice place for a dog. Too many stairs and not enough green space. One of the reasons we decided to move to Spain was to be able to live in a house with a dog perhaps as a practice for the eventuality of children. If we don't kill the dog, maybe then we will be able to handle babies.

Once we settled in to Ximena, we set off to the animal shelter in La Linea to get ourselves a dog. The animal shelter is unbelievable. It is built for 150 dogs and holds well over 400. The founder, a Dutch man name Peter, funds the entire thing himself with a charity he also created in Holland. The state doesn't help him at all even though he saves the state thousands of dollars a year. La Linea has a state run animal shelter, which Peter calls the Killing Station, because every week the euthanize all of the animals that have been brought there and were not picked up after 7 days. Rather than let that happen, Peter and his volunteers run over there and grab all the animals and take them to their shelter across the road. Peter lives and breathes for the animals there, he is an amazing man to talk to, his passion runs so deep h has dedicated his entire life to these animals. The Spanish are not good pet owners, nor are the expatriates who come here with good intentions, buying dogs for their new lives in Spain and then realising they have to leave and are unable to take the pet with them. After summer vacation, Peter's place fills up with summer pets that are either not cute enough anymore, or inconvenient, or too expensive to ship. In the summer the place is filled with dogs that people do not want to take care of while they go on summer vacation with the family. Pets are disposable. It is sad, truly sad, Peter's place looks more like a concentration camp for animals than a shelter. He does the best he can, and no dog is turned away, the kennels are made with anything and everything he can find, broken palates, chicken wire, garbage lumber from all over. Most of the floors are dirt, and there is generally only one area of shelter in each kennel, so when it starts to rain, all of the animals run for their dry corner. When Harry and I visited it was hard to leave with only one dog, we wanted to take them all.

But we did leave with one. Paula, she picked Harry. We went into her kennel and she jumped up tail wagging, eyes huge and pawed his jeans with her dusty feet. She is a typical "Parkplatz hund", no fine genetic heritage. The place was full or amazing purebred dogs that must have been bought for hundreds of dollars, German Sheppards, Scottish Terriers, even a Dalmatian puppy. But Paula is like us, common. She didn't bark, didn't say a word, but her eyes implored us to get her out of this place. She is a generally shy and nervous dog and I think living in the kennel with 9 other dogs was too much for her, she is also covered in battle scars, bits of hair missing from her ears.

Paula was brought from the killing station more than 2 years ago, as a puppy, someone took the time to buy her, have an electronic tag put in her ear and then dumped her when she was 6 months old, no more cute, but a gangly teenage dog. She spent the rest of her life in a cage with a dirt floor.

So we packed her off in our car, as quick as we could, but shes not a fan of cars, she vomited the entire drive home. Then she sat on the sofa for three days and would not get off, not to eat, not to play, not for anything. Clearly depressed and finding her new people friends a bit overwhelming. Being that she was unhappy we did the best we could to make her feel at home. Harry built her a dog house out of an old door we found in the backyard, she now has a pretty posh place of her own. She slowly came round, started to eat, started to get off the couch and explore the house. She was scared to enter any room of the house alone, and would only go if we took her. But now she moves around freely, and she is developing quite a strut. Initially when we dragged her outside she hid behind us, and ran away from everything with her tail between her legs. Now, a week later, she ambles through the neighbourhood, tail held high and she sometimes even barks. A confident, this is my place bark.

It is amazing to see her turn around, from this cowering tick ridden little thing, to a strong confident dog. I can not believe Harry and I are so proud of this little dog,, imagine how we will feel when our fist child graduates from school!

Kat Maintenance

This is the beginning..