Dog Days and Bull Nights

Not doing too well right now. I'm having widely flucuating oxygen levels. That usually only happens in the States in mid=August. I get so low I can barely function, going to the ER sometimes for oxygen between days flopped down in the bed. I'm there again.

But the improvement is that I managed to recognize it was happening before measuring my oxygen. Started at church, just as Jim was packing up the t-shirts he sells every Sunday. I sat there, watching everyone else chatting with each other and I started thinking dark thoughts. Things like 'you don't belong here', 'none of these people are your friends..' and so on. I stopped and immmediately checked my stats. I was at 86 percent, low enough to head to the hospital. I didn't. I went  home, dosed up with the asthma meds and lay down reading for the rest of the day. I downloaded the newest Mad magazine because I've learned that humor helps when I get into this state.

What hasn't helped is the fact that the last week through two days ago our tiny village was running their annual festival of the bulls. But,,, Suzanne,,, I hear you say, you liked the bullfights last December? I did. But I've amended my views on the bull fights. A couple of reasons.

1. The bulls are all from local farms and they look so confused. It's kind of cruel to subject them to the display and whooping drunken crowds.
2. I've now seen a bull fight where the bull gored a beautiful Palomino horse that ran around and around the stadium in pain while tangled up in its own guts spilling out. It took them a good ten minutes to capture the horse and shoot it.
3. Seen a bull flip over on a rider, crushing the rider to death. Again a gory spectacle that took a long time for the cowboys to catch the bull and remove the body.
4. These things bring loads of drunken theiving people who do not live in the village here. I was unaffected because we have that ten foot tall security wall with it recently raised to near 20 feet on the small section that is the only real access point. But I heard the stories of others that were robbed. I've seen the drunken crowd. 

One of the bad parts of fiesta is the noise levels. The last night of the festival they were shooting off a cannon every hour all night and all day long. They started firing it at 5 am, continuing on about twenty hours.  They finally stopped the next morning, but it was also the time they were driving the bulls using horses and motorcycles off to some local farmland for roping and chasing. Poor, poor bulls.

Most of the time I love it here. The wildlife, the beautiful greenery and flowers, the kind people, the peace and quiet. It's when the peace and quiet get stripped away that I feel anew that I'm in a strange place.