Faces and Places of La Palma #4 – Meet Oscar

Faces and Places # 4 – Meet Oscar!

Oscar has lived at the cabinas where I live for the past 5 years or so. He is a taxi driver in La Palma, but not in the sense of I drive a marked car kind of taxi driver. He drives a big truck which he's put some wood slats down as seats and then he put a tarp over the top in case it's too sunny or it rains. Oscar was my first friend in La Palma. When I was going through a hard time in the beginning (see shingles blog) he was always there for me to talk to and he always put himself into my shoes before he said anything. He's been a great friend. Each night Oscar's 14 year old son comes to the cabinas and they sit together and talk for a couple of hour and then Oscar walks his son home. On more than one occasion Oscar has told me that he really doesn't like La Palma and that he would like to leave, but he's waiting until his son is grown because as he told me, now is the most important time for him to be with his son. That's being a parent! Oscar is surprisingly philosophical and it's not hard to have a deep conversation with him (this is rare!). As my biggest competition for the hammock, we have come to an agreement. I get the hammock pretty much all day and he gets it in the evening/night. It works out well since most of my activities are at night.

Project update:

Everything is pretty much the same, computers some day, Guias y Scouts in the near future, English is on going. I do have a couple of new projects on the horizon that I'm really excited about! First, one of my friends in the community told me that she was looking into calling in the vet to do a spay and neuter clinic in La Palma. The price is about $16 per animal for the operation and then another $14 for the medications. There are very few people in my community who can afford to spend 30 dollars on a cat or dog, most animals are lucky to see dog/cat food in their lifetime. So, I got to thinking, there has got to be another way. I'm in the process of seeing how I can fund raise so that we would be able to do the clinic for free for everyone. I spoke to some people in town and they all agree that if we do the clinic for free there will be hundreds of animals taken care of. What a difference this would make! So, I'm going to see what I can do.
Next, I've been loosely working with a woman's group that does recycling and that once had a building and a library and tourist center. Some time ago their building was burned down and they have kind of stayed in tact since, but they have really been struggling. Just recently we sold food at the fiestas of La Palma and were able to make enough money in one weekend to re-build their old building and we worked 2 weekends. So, I'm going to be working with them on bringing in books for a library and also some marketing for the tourist center. It's an exciting development and the ladies are really excited about it. That's it for now.