Mister Johnny and Sweet Pea?

We got 2 sweet little kittens from our closest volunteer, Melissa, who lives in Vaquilla. This is Lee holding them after their first night at our house. Melissa hiked them in. She carried them in a cat carrier in the rain. We thought she was not coming when it got dark and she had not arrived but it turns out the river had crested and she had to wait until it was safe to cross. Water was getting into the cat carrier so she started moving clothes from her backpack in there to help protect them from the rain. They survived the journey, all 3 of them, and the kittens were even okay with meeting our dog friends that night. Canela comes by a few times a day just to say hola and look for food. Oso comes and hangs out and usually spends the night on the porch when we are there. He is one of the best-fed dogs in Panama and we hardly ever give him any food. He just comes to hang out.

The kitties liked to sleep on Lee´s chair when they were still allowed in the quincha house.

They like sleeping on their food bucket too.

They were sleeping on the window sill yesterday. Above the window is a piece of zinc that Lee put up to cover the hole that the kitties were using to get in at night. Last night we only heard them bump into it one time and meow a little bit before they went to sleep.

The orange and black one is named Mister Johnny in honor of one of Lee´s former co-workers at Publix in Albany, Georgia. If anyone from Albany reads this can you pass along the story to him. Lee really enjoyed working with him and he still tells Mr. Johnny stories. Oh, she did turn out to be a girl though so we shorten it to Johnny most of the time. The other one with more white fur is a girl too but we are still working on her name. There are a few Spanish names still in the runnig but this would be a good chance to teach our community another English name. I have called her Sweet Pea a few times and that might stick... We´ll see. I was singing that song on the porch yesterday when Severiano came to visit. Lee saw him approaching and did not warn me so I turned around mid baw-chica-baw-chica-na-na-na to see Severiano arriving in our yard and laughing at me. It seemed appropriate though because we always laugh with him and his family. He laughed really hard later when we were explaining the postal system in the U.S. to him and Lee acted out how some of the rural delivery people sit on the right side of the car and put the mail in the boxes (which they do not have here) while driving with their left arm and left leg.