Internet is back!!! Catch up time...

Dr. Julie Kyle from Vermont came in last Monday (okay, that’s three Mondays ago now… what little internet we had before died for a couple weeks) to work with us. She is planning on doing long term missions and is checking out a team with Africa Inland Mission (AIM) in the Western part of Uganda (Mbarara). She came a couple weeks early to learn from Dr. Val and see the work she’s doing up in Karamoja. So this past week has been a bit different… the few days after she got in we were doing some rabies vaccinations for the dogs and cats of the area. Tuesday was International Rabies Day so the DVO (District Veterinary Officer) had organized for a big vaccination day in Kangole (where we live mainly).

I have made a few local Kangole friends. They’re actually going to school in Kangole – a couple of them are from different parts of the country. But I met them at the borehole (where we get water). Normally we have a lady who works for us that does the cleaning and water-getting and things like that but she was sick for a while and so I was hired to fetch the water. Yes… I carried it on my head! And yes, I entertained the whole town! I have heard that when people go into long-term missions their first goal is that for the first year they are there to entertain the local people. Basically you are supposed to attempt the language and the culture and that will result in MUCH amusement for the locals. I have already accomplished this goal in large part. Every time I go to the borehole there are tons of kids around getting water. They all have a Jerrican (plastic – normally 20L or 5 gallon capacity that weighs about 40 lbs) according to their size – it’s cute. The little little kids, even the 4 and 5 year olds have their mini Jerricans that they even carry on their heads. So the first time I tried it I dropped it in about 20 meters. People have been impressed that I can carry it but I have NO idea how they can balance it without hands. They use NO hands. It makes NO sense!! I need both hands and I’m using them constantly… by the end my head and neck are fine but my arms get so tired! After that first drop I have been much more successful – it is getting better balance-wise but I still can not at all picture being able to balance it without hands. Also… I tried carrying a gigantic bundle of bananas today and I’m pretty sure it is a disadvantage to have such slippery hair. The bananas were harder than the water – they totaled about 50 lbs probably! But I did succeed – they tried to get me to stop and take it from me a couple times but I was determined to make it to the car! And I did :-) But I will from now on be using my slippery blonde (“corn silk” – which, as I’ve told you, mom, is not very accurate as that is extremely sticky stuff) hair as an excuse for not being able to balance things on my head. So anyway… our time in Kangole was good. There was one little puppy that had been punctured by a stick a while before and it’s omasum was coming out of its abdomen. That would normally not be a good thing – and wasn’t – but the puppy had been doing a fine job of sealing it off. Meaning it was nice and necrotic by the time we got it. We gave it some ace and local anesthetic – it was definitely still awake but was semi-okay with the procedure. Then we carefully started pulling at things to make sure they weren’t intestines and sewed it back up. Gave it some antibiotics and it was on its way with its owner the Mzee (respectful word for an old man) who was a sweet man and knew no English. He looked like he must be blind the way his eyes were half closed and shrivel-ey, but he waited so patiently for us to attend to his puppy and when we were done carried it away in his arms. We were able to go see him the next day and the puppy was trailing on his heels as he walked and sitting on his feet when he stopped. The pup was doing well after surgery :-) We were actually in his area of the village for another interesting call. A couple nights before some warriors had come into his home to try to steal some animals… Many people have dogs in the area, but they are almost never for pets. Their purpose is to be guard dogs and almost all people are scared of their own dogs and they beat them and things. But this time the warriors had come in with an ax and had axed the dog on the head. We were called to check on it, but no one could catch the dog so we only saw it from a distance. Unfortunately we couldn’t treat it from that far (if anyone has a dart gun up for grabs maybe that would help :-P) but we did see the wounds on his head, neck and back end. We may be able to help him at some point when we get back if he needs it. Oh, another fun/interesting one we had a bit earlier… There were two dogs that had been shot with arrows (same sort of deal with the warriors. One still had the arrow in it and we still have it as a keepsake. The wounds were on their backs – one went all the way in and out of the side and the other just went in but both were pretty shallow and didn’t go into the abdomen which is really good. We flushed them both out and helped them continue draining. Gave some meds to get the maggots out and hopefully they will heal up well. We saw the one that went all the way through a few days later and it was looking good – but that one would drain better so I hope we can see the other sometime to check on him. They started this thing in Kangole where at night they bring all the cows and goats and sheep into the center of town. That way if warriors come they can’t enter from both sides – there is only one way in that they can guard. The army is refusing to protect the animals like they used to so this is the “best” solution at the moment. Not sure that’s actually the case considering the attraction thousands of cows would be to a bunch of raiders but we will pray they don’t decide to come try and take over the town one night! Luckily that’s why we have cement walls and a guard and a big compound (with no attractive animals… so don’t worry) :-)

Anyway, we decided to spend the weekend up in the mountains - in Kapchorwa. We needed to go meet up with a couple of people from the US working as missionaries with some Christian coffee organization. I think it’s funny that that exists but it may not only be for coffee… but one of their ministries at least works with the people of Kapchorwa who grow lots of coffee. They have a disease this year that we are going to try to help them with. Dr. Val has been doing work with the Karamojong with Ethno-Veterinary Medicine – she works “together with” (that’s a very common phrase that I find entertaining) the traditional healers here. Over the years they have come up with lots of treatments for their animals using the plants that grow around and now they are doing research to make them into modern medicines. It’s actually REALLY cool. There are meds for things like retained placenta and microplasma pneumonia that are really effective and we don’t even have in the states. There’s a ringworm oil that we are going to try to use for the coffee disease. It’s a fungus called “Leaf Rust” that is destroying the crops this year. It’s very possible that our ringworm oil could work. We’re going to look into making a spray that they could use. The problem is that the only other treatment they know of is some sort of copper/heavy metal treatment that would be detected in the beans and cause them to be rejected leading to huge problems from lack of income in the already impoverished area. The ringworm oil would cause no problems in the beans so we are praying we can get things together and help them out asap! So they’re working on getting about 20 of the Karamojong medicines patented and on the market. Problem is that it is a really expensive project – about $1000 per medicine and no one has that sort of money around here. There are more than 200 potential drugs right now but they have narrowed it down to 20 to pursue… eventually – once we manage to get funding!
So Kapchorwa was SO beautiful. You are on top of a big mountain and Sipi Falls is there. There are three different waterfalls actually on the Sipi River. We hiked to two of them. I really wanted to go swimming but the water was too high at the first fall – you couldn’t walk down far enough unfortunately. The second time we were hiking I forgot to bring my swimming skirt! It was really sad :-( Yes, you have to swim in a skirt. There are some tourists around that area so it wouldn’t be quite as big of a deal there but we try to blend in with the culture and it would not have been acceptable to be in any form of a bathing suit! So we hiked down the mountain and through a cave that went behind the falls in our skirts and sandals and with a gigantic hiking stick (essential as a third leg because of the muddy/slippery paths). We got some interesting pictures of that I think. There’s a photographer, David, with us now doing some documentary kind of stuff so I’m sure he got some good ones!

As a quick summary/update because I now have two posts to put up as there has been a long time with no internet… we went back to Ngenge (bottom of the mountain from Kapchorwa) the next week to do an animal training with the people. They were a great group – very enthusiastic to learn about their diseases, ways to prevent and general health issues. It was part I of a two part farmer training… the next one is more details about each disease in the area. One fun story… while I was working with my group of about 8 guys, we were wandering through the village deworming their animals and we came across a lady who had a sick goat. I had to bring Dr. Val back to look at it later, and after carrying the old think outside we noticed that it was verging on giving birth. She was having no contractions and couldn’t stand up because she was so weak. We gave her some food and calcium and multivitamins to revive her a little and get the kids moving. Dr. Julie did a lot of assisting but eventually they came! The first was an adorable little thing… tricolor spotted goat. The second was mostly white but also had some color and maybe would have more as she grew. The next day we came back to check on them and to hopefully adopt the kids. Val and I had talked… the goat mom had no milk and couldn’t even stand for the kids to suckle if she had had any. The owner was going to have to feed them cow’s milk every four hours, which she didn’t have the time or money to do. So we decided she would want us to take them off her hands! We dropped by on our way out of town to see and sure enough, she did! The mom was on verge of death – she was really old and had had many successful kids, but it was her time to feed the family now. We took the adorable little babies home and started bottle-feeding them. They were both having some issues… the lady had kind of force-fed them the milk by pouring it into their lungs, so we soon discovered the pneumonia was really bad. The little one (named Chorwette meaning Friend in the local language) especially was not doing well. We medicated them the best we could, but unfortunately my first kid did not make it through the night. The next one (named Juliette after Dr. Julie who had delivered them) was looking much stronger than her sister. She would wobble around the ground and started to suckle enthusiastically on her bottle though her breathing was still a bit off. Her story will continue during the next post…