Sixteen months into living in site I thought posts on this theme would be a thing of the past.  I guess Just fewer and farther between.

Who knows how long I’d been chopping vegetables for singing and dancing around my kitchen and who knows how long my neighbor lady had been standing in the doorway watching me for. At least long enough to wait for the song to change before giving a timid, hola from the doorway through the rooms of my house to me still bouncing around the kitchen.

Turns out the other neighbor lady, whose taken ill, needs her blood pressure taken and I’m the closest qualified candidate to do so. Paraguayan’s love having their blood pressure taken. It’s the first thing called for at any sign of infirmity. American’s check their temperature. Paraguayan’s check their blood pressure. Whether or not your blood pressure changes the way your temperature does when you’re sick I can only speculate. I’m no doctor – I just play one some days.

I put the soup on simmer and head out across the street. Pish pish pish pish, Tcheeeeeee. 187/90. Wow. I give my usual recommendation: less salt; more veggies. You don’t need to be Michael Pollan to figure this stuff out.

I shot back across the street, close the gate, and hop the step through the open front door. Press play. The cooking continues. Moments pass. What is that smell? That does not smell good. Did I step in dog poop? Sandal check – all clear. Pig shit? A little goes a long way. Maybe I tracked some in.

Oh, looks like I’m outta milk. I grab the pitcher and head next door to refill looking for remnants of any kaka on the floor on the way. I’ll have a look around further when I get back.

A few minutes later I’m back, milk in hand and two eggs to boot. Now what the hell is that smell. I start sniffing around. Literally. Not in here, not the kitchen, not in there, is something rotting in the fridge, oh, the bedroom smells. Weird. Oh, this room really smells.

I decide something is dead on the roof. Or in it. Picture the tunnels and channels made by a tile roof. Things get under there. Mice, snakes, who knows, but you hear them at night. Now I’m a little annoyed. I’ve been waiting for this day, but somehow I figured it would happen in the morning or something, not as it was getting dark and I’m in the middle of cooking dinner.

I go outside, get the ladder and investigate. Nothing. It doesn’t even smell up here. What is going on? Back inside the search intensifies. Maybe it’s a dead mouse rotting away – it could be anywhere. Behind the fridge, no. Under the dresser, no. In this bag of seeds, no. Under this mosquito net thrown in the corner, no. Under the bed Holy Shit I yell something maybe squelch a little and slightly fall down as I scramble to get up off the one knee I’m on and sort of fall into the door jamb.

There’s a feral dog under my bed.

Now I have a whole new set of problems on my hands.

I yell at it. Clap at it. Hiss at it. Nothing. It just stares back. I pick up the nearest thing. It happens to be a 12” long dried seed pod – hey, this is Peace Corps alright, it’s not like there’re coasters and yankee candles laying around. I wing the seed pod at it and then two more. They bounce off it. Not even a flinch. It momentarily looks down contemplating the pod and slowly raises its head allowing its dying eyes to meet my own. (Can you tell I’ve read to much Cormac McCarthy today).

So. There’s a dying feral dog under my bed that reeks of death. It also happens to not be interested in leaving. I go get my neighbor. Armed with a stick and shouting guarani at it he pokes and prods it to the point where it makes the slowest and least concerned exit I’ve ever seen an unwelcome animal make. I back into another door jamb as it turns to look at me and I finally get a glimpse of its right side and a flap of skin and fur hang from its neck and the whole side of it’s body matted and wet with the fluid of death and looking like some two-faced pagan god (so says Cormac). My neighbor tells me it’s got worms. Not the kind they poop out. Apparently the kind that corkscrew through their body eating away their flesh. Oh. At least it wasn’t hanging out near the PLACE THAT I SLEEP!

The dog has gone. The smell remains. What am I gonna out power this with? I’ve got Raid. Alright. Clearly not thinking straight. Now it smells like dead dog and poison. I scrounge up some generic lysol-esque floor cleaner. Now it smells like dead dog, poison and fake lysol plus wet. Great. All I can think about is how itchy I’m going to be trying to fall asleep.

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