My Rotting Rabbit

Its been a little over 2 months since I have arrived at sight. My first encounter with my rabbit was during site visit when my mom told me we were going to eat him when I came back to start my service two weeks later. Well, thank goodness, we did not eat him. But I remember conejo, the rabbit´s name (it means rabbit in english, they don't name their pets, its always gato, conejo, perro, etc.) as being nice and plump. We could have eaten him if we wanted to. Conejo would always visit us during meal time, sitting underneath the counters and tables in my kitchen, waiting for food to be dropped so he could have something to eat. Or he would come downstairs from the roof where he lived to be found munching away at a sweetpotatoe he´d managed to get out of the big bag of fresh produce my mom had just brought from the market. Occasionally, sweet little conejo would get in trouble for eating a hole in the bag of the uncooked noodles and tearing them apart. He never did any harm to us. Even though he never let me pet him bc he´d run up the stairs faster than you could say his name, he always had a fond memory in my heart.



But now my view of conejo is changing. He is no longer fat and easy on the eyes. Poor conejo is rotting away. First, all four of paws began turning brown and then began losing their hair. Then it started happening to his nose. There is almost a hole where his nose is. But today was the saddest of all days. I saw poor conejo downstairs in front of my room, a place he has never been before. There are stairs that lead from the door outside my room to the kitchen, then more stairs to the roof where my buddy lives. Conejo was trying to get up the stairs to the kitchen but seemed to be having trouble. I just stood there, watching him for a while, witnessing the sick rabbit trying to get to his home. He was stretched out between two stairs and his body was as delgado as ever. He´d lost so much weight, he looked like a baby rabbit. But then, he tried to hop from one stair to the next, and he couldn't´t make it. This sent him rolling slowly down the 3 stairs he´d just climbed and he landed at the base on his side. Yet he didn't move. He layed on his side, stretched out, for 5 minutes. I patted the ground next to him so see if he´d move, but he wouldn´t. Usually, if I got with in two feet of him, he´d scurry away. Eventually he got up and hopped into my room. But I was not too happy with this. I am not sure what kind of disease this rabbit has, but I don't want him giving it to me. He was hiding in my corner, and after countless attempts to shoo him away with an empty box, I ended up having to call my sister for some help.



Poor conejo is sick as can be. I give him 2 days before we find his lifeless body or begin smelling the stench of yet another dead animal... Poor, poor conejo. RIP.