Field days.....

Well there has been a few questions about what exactly I do in Uganda! ha ha ha....meet people....duh! Okay well I actually am working with the goats. I thought I would give you a little day in the life of the African Goat Vet.

We have an office in Mbarara but we operate in the district called Insingiro. We drive there most days whcih in itself is usually somewhat of an adventure. The roads here are ridiculous! I am talking HUGE potholes....you drive in anyway possible to dodge them., usually resulting in some close calls. When we arrive at a widow's house we set up camp and get to work. My work is pretty basic...nothing too fancy but I like it. We first of all chat with the women to see what problems they are facing (with the goats or other aspects of their lives).

We have recently started weighing and measuring the goats for a study of Eddie's as well as to help the women with marketing their product to buyers. This way they don't get cheated as they can say the vet was here and weighed them.

We then do an exam on the goats. We usually find that they are super pale (likely due to worms), the are underweight, have diarrhea or are covered in ticks. Today we found the mother-load of ticks. Yes those are ALL ticks....I had quite the time plucking them off and squishing them!

We also see a few interesting cases like this case of Orf in this poor little kid! I can't imagine trying to eat my meals with all these lesions on my mouth.

Then of course me being who I am....I sometimes have to be the locksmith. Locking your keys in the car out in the middle of Uganda is even worse than locking your keys in the car in Northen Saskatchewan. At first I thought like any Canadian would...."Someone got a coat hanger?" ha ha ha. These people don't even have the coat to put on the coat hanger. So I used what little resources I had. I wedged some sticks in the door and was trying to turn the window crank with a stick. The sticks kept breaking and my progress was slow. I also tried putting a piece of string through the door and hooking it on the window crank.

After about 30 minutes Eddie jams a stick in the passenger door lock and "pop" the door unlocks! Ahhhh.....all in a day's work for this African Goat Vet.