Ostentatious owners
23/04/12
I
am a person who really doesn't like it when people are all up in my space.
However, it seems that you cannot survive as a white vet in Karamoja if you
stay with this attitude. Today a man came to our doors saying he had sick
cattle that we needed to see, all he could tell us was one symptom for each of
them. It was our day off, a day to ourselves when we don't treat animals, but
this man would not take no for an answer, every time we'd say please come on
Monday we can treat them then he would say, ‘ok I come at 4:30 this afternoon?’
Um… No. ‘5 o'clock then? Ok I'll come then’. No!
At
5pm he came and I went out to see that he had brought every cow he owns to us.
I waited for them to get a hold of the sick animal (we have no cattle crush
here so they just whistle and grab the horns) and then as I started the
physical examination and tried to work out what was wrong with the bull, the
owner wouldn't stop repeating the one symptom he knew. He could speak English,
which is a rare thing, but he wasn't the best at it :) I somehow also
suspected, as time went on, that he liked the sound of his own voice. It turned
out that the one symptom he was repeating, the cow did not have, changing the
diagnosis completely.
In
addition to that, imagine trying to listen to lung sounds, the heart rate and
rumination noise while you have three to five men talking loudly around you.
However, as soon as I told them to be quiet, they were, which was good. I think
somehow they knew that you don't want to upset the young, white, animal doctor
girl with a rectal thermometer in her hand. Worst was still to come for me
though as I told the owner the treatment, saying the bull needed an oral
dewormer and then he replied "no you give vaccination for antibiotics".
Firstly,
that sentence makes no sense as vaccination and antibiotics are two different
things and secondly, the bull needs neither. I struggled to know how to tell
him this though. Lesson of the day, how do you keep your cool and stay
respectful when you are becoming frustrated to the core of your being?
Then,
haha, as I ignored the men all around me trying to tell me what to do I gave it
the treatment for intestinal worms, having to tell the boy holding the bull’s
head "quap, quap, quap!!!", which means 'down', maybe I had become
the one liking the sound of my own voice but I tried to explain to them that
you cannot hold the animal's head to the sky when inserting medicine into the
mouth as it may go into the lungs. It sounded better in my mind than when I
tried to explain it to them. Language can really be a barrier here, as can
owners, who do what this man did next.
We looked at the next poor cow that was
sick and it had severely laboured breathing and a fever, looking like a form of
pneumonia. So, as I am giving the treatment, injecting an antibiotic into the
hindlimb muscles, the owner actually tried to take the syringe from me!
Seriously! I was so shocked I am surprised I got all the medicine in. For the
first time in my life I had to defend my position and tell an elder man to back
away and let me do what I came here to. Miriam, who was watching, said she was
impressed, she said, you know that's what you got to do around here, you gotta
be tough, even when you don't feel like you are.
It
was honestly a very stressful half hour to hour long treatment time, and the
longer I was out there, the more people came to watch including a group of
shepherd boys who unfortunately did not knowing the meaning of personal space,
all trying to get a good look at what the thermometer says or 'where will she
stick that needle' or 'ooh what is in that hoof there?' So... it turns out I
need personal space. Who knew? ;)
My time to story: Sitting under a tree relaxing with some Karamojans
2/05/12
Wednesday
the 2nd May was a great day. Miriam and I, with Joshua (a local guy and friend
who has worked with KACHEP for most of its time, with animal work, agroforestry
work and evangelism work, plus translates for us) and Olum (local animal health
worker and traditional healer) drove down to Lolachat, where we would be doing
the spraying that day. Summer had malaria (not a great part of this story) and
so had to stay home, sick in bed :(
Usually
each Wednesday spraying consists of three parts; tick-spraying cattle, sheep
and goats, vet treatments and a Bible story at the end. With Summer not there
she asked if I would like to tell the story. I jumped at the opportunity and I
told the story of the Lost Son (Luke 15:11-32). I love this story for what it
tells us of both God and humanity in the characters of the father and the sons.
I feel it's applicable to all ears that may hear it because everyone rebels
against God, whether they live in Aus or here in K'jong, just like the younger
son in the story rebels against his father. Just like in the story, as soon as
we ask for forgiveness and turn away from living life our own way, God
forgives. He loves us so much, he is waiting for this, in fact! He wants us to
come back into relationship with him just like the father in the story waited
for his son to come home.
The
people were very interactive with the story, in the usual Karamojong way and
although I wish I could be telling the story in their language without needing
a translator, I was also glad to have Joshua there. He often gets really
excited about acting stories out and so when the part of the story came where
the son returns home he got up and acted out the father looking out across the
land and seeing the son and then racing out to greet him, ha ha he is really
good value for that! Even as an older man he still gets youthfully excited when
it comes to telling people about God.
I
really loved sitting around with the people, sharing with them and then
listening to their thoughts on it afterwards. It just feels so natural to sit
under a tree here and talk about God together, I may look really different to
them but somehow they accepted me, listened to the story and were even interested
to know more. Afterwards the conversation took a really cool turn into
explaining how it is that God can forgive us, like the father does in the
story. How is it that God can forgive everyone's sins, every wrong thing done
against him, and all we have to do is ask for our record of wrongs to be
metaphorically wiped clean? What a great question and segue into talking about
Jesus. The Karamojans understand the idea of sacrifice probably better than we
do the first time we hear it because, in many ways the people here live like
they are in the pages of the old testament. When wrong is done, a price must be
paid, blood of an animal is shed, for justice, they “get” that, it's how life
is here. Like us they may not understand how it could be that God could love us
that much to send his son to take on the weight of such a sacrifice, all the
sins of the world paid, once for all but they can believe. Jesus died that
death so we don't have to.
Afterward
we prayed to our powerful God for anything that was on their hearts. A lot of
the people there had lost cattle to 'enemies' recently and this is a massive
blow to them, their livelihoods, their sustainability and even their ability to
provide for their families. I feel so sad for them I can't even put it into
words. Some of them have people come and attack their villages and homes every
week. I cannot imagine how that must feel for them; that insecurity and worry.
But the crazy thing is when I talk to them about it they often repeat 'mam
nache, iyey akutch' to me, 'God is there, we do not worry', the faith of those
who believe out here is such an encouragement to me. It is true God is here,
God is in every situation and God takes on our worries and troubles. I also
asked Joshua to pray for Summer, who is really feeling horrible. Turns out
malaria sucks. Thank God he has given the world an effective and relatively
pain free treatment for it. If she had brucellosis (another common disease out
here) she would have to have 5ml of antibiotic injected into her thigh muscle daily
for 14 days! There's a silver lining for everything.
Later
in the afternoon we returned home and got stuck into some language learning, it
is fun to be able to say more and more to the people around you each week. You
really take language for granted when you are back home and can speak to
everyone easily.
Since
writing the above, Summer has finished her malaria treatment and apart from
stomach upsets and remaining fatigue (malaria destroys red blood cells= iron
depletion= muscle weakness), she has recovered :) PTL
All
my love, Mel.
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