AfricaVetGirl

We left the ranch and after a much needed hot shower and a good night’s sleep we headed to Dar es Salaam by bus. We were hoping to make it to Dar to catch the last ferry over to Stonetown and we made it in time but the ferry was all sold out. Our cab driver told us he could get us there for about the same price by plane and it seemed too good to be true! After much debate and consulting of the Lonely Planet we decided to go for it. In the end we were happy to have made the decision because we made it to the airport and after a 20 minute flight we were in Stonetown. Zanzibar at last! We spent the night at Flamingo house and then headed first thing ... read more

Ok, so I'm cheating a little bit. We didn't have internet access so I haven't posted anything since the end of July but I wanted to update everyone on the rest of our trip. The summary would be WAY too long if I tried to do it in one update so I'm going to do a few in order of where we traveled. Yes I know I'm not in Africa anymore but I'm going to put the dates from when these events occurred so I don't mess up the timeline too much! --Since our plans didn't pan out with the Arusha SPCA we opted to take a final safari (we'd already seen what little there is of Arusha and couldn't handle even one more day of the crazy touts that are everywhere in town!). We headed ... read more

Well we've made it to our final leg of the trip. Two weeks today and I'll be arriving home! We have our last bit of vet work next week followed by a little bit of vacation time in Zanzibar and then back to Nairobi for our flight out on the 10th of August. The trip to Tanzania went pretty smoothly, or as well as an 18 hour bus ride could be! I am definitely starting to appreciate even the luxury of travelling by train at home. The roads were the worst in Kenya, and so there was definitely no sleeping. I was kind of glad it was dark out because I often wondered if we were even on anything remotely resembling a road. Tanzania is very pretty. It's much greener than Kenya and we even saw ... read more

Since our return from Queen Elizabeth we've been staying on campus at Makerere and working with Dr. Berna of the Uganda SPCA. It's been an interesting couple of days and it certainly makes us grateful for all of the amenities that we have available in Canada! We began our week traveling around Kampala visiting the USPCA foster homes vaccinating, deworming and helping with spays and neuters. It’s certainly different to be doing spays on a kitchen table or even outside on the deck! The instruments are “sterilized” with some boiling water and other than that the procedure is not very aseptic. Each animal receives antibiotics at the end and Berna says they all seem to do quite well. Certainly different than what we do at home! For those that are interested: we used injectables (of course)- ... read more

We're back in Kampala. After a very busy 2 weeks in two of Uganda's national parks we have returned to the University of Makerere in Kampala, Uganda for a week at the Uganda SPCA. We had a fantastic time during our travels and there's lots to share so sorry in advance to the length of this note! I’m going to post our experiences at Mburo and Queen Elizabeth separately. Week 1: We began our time in Lake Mburo National Park with the third year veterinary students from the University of Makerere and some of their professors. It was a pretty small class of only 23 students- most of whom where male- which is a big shift from what we're used to at OVC! It was really neat talking to the students and learning about their program ... read more

Well we made it to uganda after a very interesting bus experience. Apparently in Africa they don't give you directions, they just unload you off the bus in the middle of the night and drive away! Luckily we were able to follow the people in front of us because otherwise we would have never found our way! We're now in a small town outside of Kampala called Entebbe working at the Uganda Wildlife and Education Centre. It's a really neat place because they have created a zoo, but entirely from animals that were orphaned or rescued from poachers. It's much hotter here than in Nairobi. We're sleeping on top of our sleeping bags because it's way too hot to sleep inside. I couldn't even imagine what their summers are like because it's winter here right now ... read more

Well we've finished our first week of travels and it's certainly been interesting! We're starting to adapt to life here in Kenya- never expect something to come fast and never expect to things to follow your schedule! So far I'm not very happy being in Nairobi but I think that once we get out of here and into the smaller areas it will be better. It's really intimidating constantly feeling like people want to take your money because you're a "rich white person". Masai Mara this weekend was really cool. Although we totally got ripped off on our safari we watched a pride of lions take down a water buffalo right in front of us- which was incredible. It was just like what you would see on National Geographic! The roads on the way to Masai ... read more