The following is a letter written by Andrea during December 2007. Andrea lives in Sri Lanka and volunteers for Home and Abroad Animal Welfare (HAAAW). She is a good friend to the animals and like a daughter to us...
I’m Andrea Slemmermann and I have been working for Home and Abroad Animal Welfare for about 2 years. I have a compound with nine dogs in Sri Lanka. That’s Jessie and May, our eldest dogs; May has taken in a lot of street puppies as her own babies and Jessie is a very happy, naughty little dog. Granville is a Ridgeback, with just skin and bones when we found him because his owners didn’t have money to feed the poor thing, and he got blind because of lack of food. Now he’s a big, fat dog. Keells is the front of the house dog; he’s very happy and loves playing. We got him from the supermarket named Keells. Jos is a funny little sweet dog; she’s just got three legs and she had mange. I picked her up on my way home after school, and May has taken her as her baby. Annie was a very nervous dog when she came but now she’s very friendly. Puppy’s a sweetie; he does his own thing in his own way and he loves a bit of attention. We got Benedict and Phoebe from the last trip and Benedict was in a very bad state. He was in a police station and little girls were stoning him. He was covered by mange and he was totally blind from it. He’s a beautiful dog and now he can see. Phoebe was the same; she too had very bad mange.
All the dogs in my home have had very bad mange and come from very rough areas. My Dad Ralph looks after them and works miracles, as they all turn out to be beautiful dogs.
We also have two monkeys, Indiana and Amos. Indiana came from a gypsy family and she had a very bad cut around her waist from a string. Amos just turned up from our village.
The monkeys and dogs are my family and when we loose one of them it’s like loosing a member of my family. Boris, who had to be put to sleep this year had a tumour in his nose and nobody knew that he would live so long. He stayed with us for around one year. His tumour was getting worse, so we had to take a very hard decision to put him to sleep. Then there was poor old Tiger, he lived with us for about one and half years. He was a very old boy, at least 15 years and he lived on the beach. His owners didn’t want him because he was smelling very badly and he didn’t have any hair. He turned out to be a very lovely dog and we miss Tiger a lot.
Negombo is the second biggest town in Sri Lanka and people in Sri Lanka are not educated about animals. If a little child stones a dog the mother would never scold her, it’s a normal thing here. But after HAAAW coming to Sri Lanka I don’t see as much mange dogs or litters of puppies as before.
By educating the people and especially the children about caring for animals the conditions have improved for the animals. We do see good results in having school talks and by giving little speeches to people.
As a person who lives here in Sri Lanka, I have seen a big difference in Negombo and I am thankful for HAAAW for coming to my country and for helping the poor needy little souls.
I have learnt a lot of things by working with HAAAW, seeing this much improvement means a lot to me and also to the people who live in Negombo.
I am overwhelmed with gratitude to Janice Down, the founder of HAAAW, and to everybody who is supporting HAAAW for making the world a better place for animals who don’t speak, but who have got feelings like you and me.
Thank you.
