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Published: August 11th 2015
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This week I fell in love with Africa again. I fed a giraffe a peanut butter sandwich, and had a bath on the side of a mountain.
Monday was a wonderful, special, giraffe filled day. We went to Areena, the place where we went quad biking, to dart some impala in their game reserve.Rick and I took it in turns to dart them from the back of a quad bike, an experience in itself. Speeding along up and down the mud tracks, Jared the Guide told me "We'll have to do a bit of off roading to push the animals uphill. Hold on tight." Holding on for dear life with one hand, with a dart gun in the other was terrifying, and I tried to keep my cool and act professional as I darted the impala female. It was a good hit, and my professionalism went out the window as I burst out "Waa that was so cool!"to the guide. She tranquillised quickly, and before I knew it we had an impala on our laps, speeding back to the truck, where our lucky students gave IV, intramuscular and subcutaneous injections to the animal. A little less helpful, however, was Abi, the
tame giraffe of the park, who roams freely around during the day, putting his head over the gates at the local primary school within the park, and trying to mate with people's cars when he is given a chance. Today he most certainly needed to know what was going on with our darting truck, and he glided over to visit us, and spent the morning being extremely nosey, and quite unhelpful at times. But my goodness what an experience to be darting impala and coming back to be greeted by a giraffe! And in between dartings he would kiss you on the head, stand by you to be patted and steal your lunch. I didn't realise he was behind me as I had a piece of bread in my hand, and he snaffled the lot. I made a peanut butter sandwich to give to him, perhaps the first giraffe in the world to experience peanut butter, and he loved it. A gentle, inquisitive, and somewhat cheeky giant, I was absolutely in my element, what an honour to be here. I couldn't have been further from my life at home that
Monday lunchtime. In the afternoon we went to treat a sick
waterbuck, a very large antelope, that was unfortunately dead on arrival. We let Holly, our current only student, make the incision for the post mortem, and had great fun dissecting the ruminant, and describing the anatomy to our keen audience of game Rangers. The waterbuck had died of "heart water", a tick Bourne disease found here (ehrlichia) causing a pericardial effusion. On the way home we had a mini game drive, and saw baby rhino, warthogs, and the lion we stitched up a few weeks before. The sun set over Africa that evening, and I was once again truly happy beyond words. Tuesday we still only had one student, as the rest of the group were in Cape Town for a long weekend. So Holly, Rick, Kim and I worked hard all day, starting off injecting lots of pigs for worms, with ivermectin. The pigs were being farmed in poor conditions, and had no water today, even on this hot day, and we spent the next hour filling up their water buckets and watching them desperately suck on the hosepipes to rehydrate themselves. Afterwards we examined a sick horse, then returned to Areena to trim the goats and alpacas feet,
which really needed doing. In the afternoon, we injected a load of cattle for ticks. The cows were covered in hundreds of ticks, all over their bodies, it is a wonder how these animals survive here. It seems everything here in Africa wants to eat you. Lastly we popped into the Cintsa township to repeat the chemo on our dog there with the TVT (transmittable venereal tumour) on her vulva. The tumour had shrunk dramatically, and the owner was so grateful. In the evening we went to the cinema, and on the way home we drove past the township, and past a tiny baby goat who was asleep in the middle of the road, with no mum in sight. It was about to get run over, so we decided to bundle him into our car and take him home for the night, and return him in the morning. Poor thing was freezing and was only 3 or 4 days old, and we made him a bed and fed him milk overnight, waking up
at 4am to feed him. It felt like being on call again.
Wednesday morning we returned our little goat to his mummy in the township, before spending the day
net capturing blesbok, which involves someone driving the animals into a big net, and Us Running and pouncing on them, before injecting sedation IV and blindfolding them. It is more stressful for the animals, but easier to catch lots of animals...if it goes well. A load of them jumped the fence, but after a second attempt, we managed to get a trailer full of animals to take to their new home. Thursday we returned to dip our Cintsa dogs, and the team worked brilliantly to get them all done in 2 hours, whilst still learning how to examine a couple of kittens, and treat a range of diseases. Afterwards we headed to the Fletchers farm to inject the sheep for sheep scab and diarrhoea. These sheep are bred for merino wool, so sheep scab ( a type of mite that causes crusting all over the skin) can cause a massive loss in income, and it had spread through this flock like wildfire. In between injecting, I took a couple of students aside to teach sheep clinical exams to, and Meg, one of our loveliest, smartest students pointed to the sheeps teats. "Only two?" She asked me. "So do they grow
more during pregnancy then?" Bless her. Friday we were supposed to head to Hamburg hounds, but it was too windy to go, so we changed tack and headed to Morgan Bay and to a new township we had never been to before. We took Zorro, our translator and bodyguard, and we worked hard in the freezing wind, to dip the dogs of the township. The dogs here were reasonably healthy, but we still saw lots of TVT's and a few bladder issues, which were great teaching cases. A local lady saw us and took pity on us, thanking us very much for helping the community dogs, and offered us all free hot chocolate at the local hotel. We were very grateful for the warmth! On the way out of the township, I followed a lame goat, determined to catch it, to check its foot. I ended up running after it across grassland, with a load of African kids, until we caught it, and the farmer came over, wondering what on earth we were doing with his animal. I offered to check the rest of his stock, and we looked at a dozen goats in a little dingy mud hut. They
all had horrific mange lesions, and, as everyone here seems to do, the farmer had rubbed its skin in tar to improve it. I gave them an ivermectin course, hoping to at least offer some relief. To end the week, Kim and I made up a quiz for the students, and I was proud how much they had picked up from us over the past few weeks. We gave prizes for creativity, one being the answer to the question "Why do we inject piglets with iron when they are born?" I wish the answer was indeed "So they don't go rusty." We had plenty of adventures this weekend, in the glorious sunshine. Saturday we went horse riding on the beach, and saw Dolphins crashing on the waves along the coast. It was an epic experience, to trot and canter along the sand, and amble along the stunning coastline. Sunday a group of us headed to Hogsback, a village in the mountains, a couple of hours from Cintsa. We hiked up to waterfalls, climbed to cliff edges, napped on a wooden deck overlooking the mountains, and best of all, took a warm outdoor bath with the best view in the world.
There was a vat of water with a fire underneath it, which had pipes that attached to the bath. It was the best bath I have ever had, and probably ever will have.
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