By Emily Egan - AVC vet student
So much happens here every day that I could type for hours
and still have more to talk about! Maybe I’ll just give a little overview of
some of the highlights of the things I’ve seen and done here in Kenya so far.
I think the most incredible part of my trip so far has been
the amazing people I’ve met. Everyone here is so kind and thoughtful, generous
and caring. Farmers with very little to live on somehow manage to offer us tea
and snacks when we visit their homes. Geoffrey, the chairman of Naari Dairy,
and Jennifer, our ‘Kenyan mother’ are both wonderful individuals who are trying
their very best to make us feel at home and comfortable in this new
environment. Even the people who I don’t meet but just see in passing are nice!
Everyone here smiles at us and wants to shake our hands. The kids all run over
to greet us and practice their English on us. Whenever we go out for walks we
usually end up with a group of school kids following after us and asking “how
are you?”. Kenyans really are incredible people, and I’m very grateful for this
opportunity to interact with them.
During the week, the 5 of us drive to farms to ask the
farmers a series of questions and examine and treat their cattle. Now, having
lived in Canada all my life, I know that to most Canadians the term “driving”
doesn’t imply much excitement. That’s where you’d be wrong. With John driving
and a guide in the passenger seat, Joan, Dennis, Krista, and I sit in the back
of the gypsy with our little traveling vet clinic and bounce and jostle and
bump our heads and giggle all the way from farm to farm. Some of the roads are
quite flat and even (but even then it was tricky because they drive on the
opposite side of the road here), but most of the places that we took our poor
truck were a cross between a footpath through a forest, and a dried out river
bed. Generally I don’t think of sitting in a car as being much fun, but I can’t
help laughing and smiling whenever we get into the gypsy. And then we get to a farm and the fun
continues! I’ve learned so much in the last few weeks, I don’t even know where
to start… This has been an incredible experience both from a vet medicine
standpoint and a cultural one. I’m gaining a new perspective on virtually
everything as I interact with the people here and learn from them and the way
they live, and I’ve also had a very steep but rewarding learning curve in
bovine medicine. I’m learning to do very thorough physical exams, body
condition scores, housing evaluations, venipuncture, and rectal exams to check
for ovary status and pregnancy. Maybe that’s too much information for this
blog, but it’s been a phenomenal experience for me. The last few weeks have
really made me aware that this is truly what I want to do with my life.
On the weekends we more or less relax. John, Joan, and
Dennis left for Nairobi yesterday morning, so Krista and I are here alone for
the weekend. It was a very strange feeling having just the two of us in the
house. It felt like we were little kids again whose parents had left for the
first time. We decided to go shopping in Meru for a few hours, and on the way
there we saw ELEPHANTS!!! It was awesome. There were 12 or 13 or more off to
one side of the road so we stopped and got out and took a million photos of
them and just stood there amazed that we are so lucky to be here and see these
things! Eventually Charles convinced us to continue to town so we said goodbye
but I couldn’t keep the smile off my face for the rest of the day!
Making supper was an adventure in itself as well! We
would’ve just eaten sandwiches, but we’re supposed to feed the guards as well
so we didn’t want to disappoint them! We successfully made rice and vegetable
stew, but because I hate matches and Krista hates propane stoves it took us
several tries to get started… Plus we didn’t really recognize many of the
spices and seasonings so it was a bit of an experiment! But it was edible, if
not delicious, so I think it went well. And then we watched the Lion King before bed.
Joan and Dennis should be back this evening, until then I’m
going to relax and enjoy the beautiful sunshine, the tropical trees and
flowers, and the bird songs and other unidentifiable noises! And then on Monday
we’ll start all over again meeting new and wonderful people and learning new
and wonderful things!
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