From the Hand of Kafka / Rebeca Monzo

I’m sure if this gentleman were alive today, on my planet, he would write of local customs.

I went with my friend Regina to the Veterinary School, because her puppy needed emergency surgery. I did not want her to have to undertake this sad errand alone.

It had been many years, thank God, since I had been inside this campus. On arrival, the impression was horrible: the state of abandonment, deterioration and filth hit me. Who is last in line for surgery? I asked. I immediately marked our place behind a lady carrying a little sata puppy with a strong demo. There was a German Shepherd with an ingestion of pork, and a cocker spaniel puppy with the same. It was still very early. Later the line swelled with the new patients arriving. One was brought in a wheelbarrow used for construction materials.

When we got ourselves organized and were waiting our turn, an employee shouted that the power company had informed them that today would be a “free hand” in the whole area. In other words, there’s not going to be any power until who knows when. My friend and I bristled. The thought of having to repeat the ordeal, we were not amused, when another voice, this time from one of the doctors, announced that surgery would continue because they were going to operate with the light from the sun. Yes, you heard it right, “A Pleno Sol” just like the movie, but without Alain Delon in the leading role!

Recovery room entrance. The spots are bat feces.

A dog owner approached us and told us all the services offered in this place, but the only inconvenience was they could cut the dogs’ toenails but they didn’t have the clippers for it, and also they could vaccinate but right now they didn’t have any vaccines, and they could wash and style the dogs except right now they didn’t have any water and the electric clippers were broken.

Finally, after a long wait, even though we were third in line, but some emergencies arrived which logically had to go first, we could see the lamentable conditions of the place didn’t stop the magnificent and brave surgeons, saving the life of each little animal, spending the day in the “sunlit” operating room.

Hats off to the vets!

January 7 2011