Melissa Graham 9/05/12

Getting to know Karamoja

Every day, without fail, an animal comes with respiratory problems. There is a disease outbreak here that mostly only hits cattle and goats, called CBPP (contagious bovine pleural pneumonia) and CCPP (contagious caprine pleural pneumonia) respectively. However, lately because the rainy season has started (hot, humid mornings which build into stormy rainy afternoons starting at around 2pm daily) the fresh green grass has brought in some bloat cases. With no veterinarian here anymore, this basically gives me reason to say, eeeeeeeeeeep. A week ago we sprayed cattle for ticks here in Nabilituk and a small black cow was brought to the car (where I treat animals from- my office ha ha) clearly suffering from bloat. She had not eaten all week and the rumen was extremely distended with gas. On percussion you could hear it like it was a gas bottle you were tapping not a cow's stomach. I knew that it was severe but I chickened out from puncturing the rumen to relieve the gas. Olum, the local traditional healer suggested a plant to help relieve the gas and to pour soapy water down it's throat. A week later it came back to us, still with bloat but worse. She struggled to stand, had her neck stuck out and was finding it hard to breath. Ok, this time I could not chicken out. I checked the textbooks for guidance and they said a cow showing the signs above, about to die, must relieve gas now, danger, danger! I gave some sedative IV (I actually got the vein first time which, in a cow, usually doesn't happen for me) scrubbed the area of the rumen, which felt like a bouncy ball by this stage, and stabbed. It was pretty cool but I was so nervous that I'd do it wrong, with no one there to help me! The first time I went for it, the trochar (sharp pointy thing) just bounced right off again like it was a trampouline, eeep. I stabbed a little harder the next go. Watching the trochar with the plastic chamber thingy move as the gas came out I thought wow was I crazy to have done that just then when it could have gone horribly wrong? A penicillin streptomycin shot and a prayer for the cow later and we were finished.

I am not sure if I'm cut out for Karamoja, I'm not sure if I'm cut out to be a vet missionary but I do know that God knows and he gives me the good and the bad to wrestle with and grow from. Sometimes I feel like arghh I want a proper bathroom and fresh vegetables and to be able to communicate easily with people, I miss home people and I wish I didn't look so clearly foreign so that people wouldn't stare all the time and if only I could stay clean for 5 minutes!

But then other times, I am not sure I ever want to leave. When I go for a long walks with Nakirion (the dog I have adopted) who is wonderful and faithful and sweet and entertaining and I fall in love with the landscape of Karamoja again and again, with the fresh green grass and flowers blossoming, now it is rainy season to the backdrop of stunning mountains. I think of the friends I have made here and the tiny successes made every day with being able to say a little bit more to them. I see Nabor, a Karamojong women who is a neighbour and friend of ours looking a little sad and I run over to her and she tries to act all tough and I hug her and she erupts into giggles, her nose crinkling up and she tugs my hair. I think of the people here who are so tough, struggling every day in this environment and yet are the most thankful people I have ever met. The men who stay awake at night protecting their cattle, the women who look after their children, their homes and who also work during the day as well (often carrying their babies on their backs as they work), carrying 20L jerry cans of water on their heads or hoeing the fields in the sun. One day Nabor came over and met Miriam and told her she had just fallen off the roof of her house she was fixing, onto her back but she said 'I did not fall on my baby, God is there'. Wow I would not be so faithful in such a moment. When Summer was sick, they all came over and sat with us and prayed for her and were in tears for her, seeing her pain.

I also love the animals here; they are everywhere. I love the kids here, they run up to me and shake my hand
(I think that's what their parents tell them to do) and the ones I see regularly even know my name, they call out Me-liiissss-a! they are just so cute. I think if I sacrifice some clothes in my suitcase I can smuggle a few home with me ;)

I think surprisingly, doing the vet work is not even the best part of being here, it is the time spent with the women here or walking around the place meeting people you can just stop by and ask how they are going, what is new in their lives. It is funny how you can be a novelty attraction for your strangeness; the colour of my skin, what I am here for/do - typically the men work with animals, that I am over 20 and not married with kids, and that we often wear different types of clothes (although every woman must wear a skirt longer than the knee here or you really will be an outcast), etc. which can be bad because they make assumptions of you before they know you. But the longer you hang around, the more people you know and the more excited they are when they see you. You change from just being a strange entity to being a person, with a name, who can speak to you (a little). It makes you want to stick it out, even when it's a struggle to begin with.