Rain dancing

So it turns out that the Cook Islands has run out of water...!With only a couple of percent in the tanks before a national state or emergency is called, most of the volunteers are mainly upset about the lack of a shower. Thank God we live across the road from the beach!
It does, however, make the daily feed and clean somewhat more challenging, with the inability to clean, and Gregg doing regular runs across the road (where, being a few metres further down hill, still has a little) for water for animals!
Luckily, the last two days have seen some drizzle and we now have a trickle of water in the toilet - hooray!!
As for the patients, the fish poisonings continue to come in. Just when one gets better, two more arrive. However, Blackie, Bourbon and Bobbi all now have lovely homes and our clinic dog Mama- who came down with fish poisoning due to her scavenging ways - is starting to improve with lots of TLC. She now appears mainly upset that Hovis is in the house without her!
The last few weeks have also seen a sad number of puppies too young to be taken from their mums, doing very poorly. One even died, no matter how much we tried to rehydrate the three week old, who had been away from her mum for more than two weeks. Unfortunately, her new owners had been trying to work out what to feed her and - knowing she was too young for dog food - offered her Weetbix and UHT milk. Sad though the story is, I hope that we can all learn from it, and a new educational missive begins... One more thing for Gregg to teach the kids on his school visits :-) The kittens also keep rolling in, though thankfully we have been donated some kitten milk so can feed them (though 4 hrly feeds makes for tired volunteers!)




As for the volunteers, there has been big changes (going from 13 people 2 weeks ago to 4 on the weekend - Friday night was our first quiet (ish) one in a long time). It is lovely to meet another team of enthusiastic caring young people keen to make a difference to the animals of Rarotonga.