Team Update - car trouble

8^th November 2012

Hey everyone, I am just writing to give you a bit of an up date since the last post. This week we had a car problem! Unhelpfully, Summer and I know as much about cars as we do about astrophysics and when you are out in Karamoja, that is not always a good thing. Don't worry yet though, it has a happy-ish ending but I am considering trying to squeeze in a mechanics course to go with my vet degree!

So, on Tuesday this week we headed out to the village of Naboru's husband. Nabor is a KACHEP employee with the chicken project as well as a neighbour and friend.  Her husband, Akol Paul had invited us there to thank us for helping Nabor when she and her newborn baby were diagnosed with tuberculosis about a month ago. We helped with some medicines and food for her while she was sick.
 When we finally arrived at his village, through the torrential downpour of rain that was happening as we drove through the mud, he brought us a large and handsom he-goat and wanted our approval of it. He was going to give us one of the biggest of K'jong honours, to slaughter a goat for us! The men made a fire out of wet thorn bushes and roasted the goat on top, resulting in a delicious smokey flavour. So we had smoked goat, danced with the women and then had a Karamajong slumber party in a mud hut, sleeping on cow skins. Paul, not a Christian, has 5 wives all of whom have different huts but we slept in the 1st wife's hut.
 In the morning, we headed out to the vehicle as we were going back to Nabilatuk to plan for Thursday's program.
On Thursday we had planned a 'Keeping Healthy Animals' day at a village we hadn't had much contact with before. The theory behind the day was that the men of the village live too far from Nabilatuk township and so don't bring their sick animals to us, they just buy antibiotics from town and carry them back to their villages. The problem is though that the people here are mostly all illiterate and so unfortunately can't read the directions on the back of the medicines and don't really know how much meds to give. So very commonly they are under-dosing their animals, leading to bacterial resistance and they end up having to bring their cattle to see us anyway. Our aim was to spend the day teaching on the basics of doing a physical exam, estimating weight, common diseases and available treatments, just to give them a bit more of a knowledge base in their strive to keep healthy animals!
 As we all piled into the truck to go back to Nabilatuk, Summer tried to start the car and it gave a few pathetic whines but never sparked to life. She tried again, with the same results, so we popped the hood and saw that one of the wires coming from the battery was smoking. So, imagine if you will, us, two whites and four K'jong, in a broken down car, in Africa's version of whoop whoop. Thankfully we were able to contact OPC, our neighbourly mission friends who live an hour away. They drove to a semi-central point that we both knew, we walked 10 km to meet them and then directed them through the bush to the village and our car. Thank you God for mobile phones and friends. We were towed to their compound and made the executive decision to postpone our 'Keeping Healthy Animals' day for another day, hopefully in two weeks time.
Jesse, an engineer, and son of my mission leader from CVM, worked on our car for the rest of Wednesday and some of Thursday and worked out that it was a short in the positive circuit of the battery and when we turn the car off, the short drains the battery. So by disconnecting the battery every time we turn the car off and then reconnecting it again we can use the vehicle, but it's not great. We are driving down on Saturday to a mechanic to get it properly fixed (praying!).
 By around Thurs lunchtime when we had realised all of this we headed back to Nabilatuk to pack some more clothes because all we had with us were what we had from our village stay and we smelt. Badly.
When we arrived, it was to find that our neighbour had died and a funeral was going to take place that afternoon. We were worried that the afternoon rains would catch us on our drive back to OPC, but it was all fine in the end. We attended the burial, giving the family a sheet to wrap the old man's body in. It was so sad in particular because the daughter had drunk her sorrows away and was wailing at an excruciating volume. You know when you're in a situation where one person is doing something a bit out of the ordinary, and everyone knows it. I was a bit like that and it made me feel sick to see her sorrow so on display. Not that it was wrong for her to show her anguish, of course, just that I had never seen someone in so much obvious emotional pain, people usually do a good job of hiding their true feelings.
So although we are fine, it hasn't been the week we'd planned.
We know 100% that God is looking out for us and protecting us through these things but it is still a bit disappointing to be out of ministry action for a while, while the truck gets fixed.
We hope, however, that we can use the time to go up north to Kaabong and Lotim, where the team was originally meant to move to and still might. Summer has some business to sort out there before next year and I've never been and am a travel monkey so I'm along for the ride!
 - Pray for safe travels on the road on Friday and that the truck would get easily sorted out.

 - Praise that God had help and provision for us in our time of need and that we now know of this problem before we were really out of reach.

 - Pray for the villages we won't be able to get to for our Bible studies next week that they would continue on without us.

 - Pray for our trip up north, again for safety on these crazy crazy roads and for a good, efficient time of business and for a bit of fun as well.

 

"In their hearts humans plan their course, but the LORD establishes their steps."

Proverbs 16:9

 

Visiting a Peace Village

29th October 2012

On the weekend we had a bit of a Christian Veterinarians Mission party! There was Dr Val and Waffle, plus another CVM couple, Dr Daniel and Rachel Graham, as well as Julie, Summer and I. On the Sunday we all headed to Nabwal and Nakayot peace villages along the slip and slide they call Karamoja roads.

These villages bring 11,000 people or more together from two huge tribes, the Piyan (the people group we work with in Nabilatuk) and the Bokora (the people Dr Val works with in Moroto), from 4 different locations to live together in one main location. This location is pivotal to the peace village as it is in the raiding corridor between these two tribes. This peace village, set up 3 years ago, has been able to try and stop potential raiders moving between the tribes to steal cattle.
Check out 'Karamoja Peace Villages - YouTube' to get more of an idea of what I'm talking about.
 When we visited this weekend we met with the village elders, hearing their struggles and victories. Many people are sick and even passed away, animals too. The main problem is the road. It is so bad, that if it ever rains, no one can get to them. They have a clinic but without a way to get there, the nurse and medical supplies can't make it to them. During the meeting, I felt super awkward at just how ferocious the warriors were when they were talking. The Karamajong are very strong people in many ways and their manner of speaking to each other is no exception. The purpose of the meeting was to persuade the members of the peace village on the importance of improving the road and by the end of the meeting 400 men had volunteered to get their shovels and hoes out and work on it. Dr Val volunteered the idea of a 'food for work' project, she would make sure they had food for the time they were working so that they could finish the road. Everyone agreed on that.
One of the more troubling moments for me as I was sitting in the meeting was when one of the warriors was talking about how much they need this road because so people are dying from illnesses. He said things like "Our animals are all dying and we're all dying! If you don't believe me, I'll show you their graves" and he reiterated the same sentiments over and over again. I thought that although yes, this is a serious issue of sickness, he was going a bit over the top. I now understand that he was doing that to get everyone on board for the larger vision of persuading people that the road needs to be better to improve their access to supplies. If the people aren't pushed to see the need and a way they can fix it, then it may not get done for a while. At the time, however, I didn't know this! I almost cried at this angry man's intimidating yet moving words (which is not a wrong reaction but I have it in a better light of understanding now). So they are making a step forward in the right direction on this which is an awesome blessing for the community! It was a really amazing time and a privilege to be a part of such a meeting. Just being in this spot, the raiding corridor, they are helping Karamoja be one step closer to seeing each other not as enemies but neighbours.

Psalm 37:2-7 says,

"Trust in the LORD and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture.

Take delight in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart.

Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him and he will do this:

He will make your righteous reward shine like the noonday sun.

Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him."

 

As Dr Daniel said as we were leaving, "If they build it, we will come."

A wonderful suprise

Wednesday 24th October

Summer and I had a surprising visitor this week, Dr. Julie from Vermont, USA. She has been in Uganda working with Dr. Val (a vet also working with CVM, see other posts) for almost a month. I had met Julie when I was in Soroti with the CVM team there (see 'Surgeries' post).

 I got a call from Val, Monday afternoon as we were leaving our Bible study in Kasiapus village. We didn't have a translator that day and I was, at that moment, so happy because I had just managed to lead the study predominantly in Ngakaramajong (the local language here), God is good. Anyway Val calls me and tells me that her fiance, Waffle (yes, he goes by Waffle, don't judge)  had just arrived in Uganda to see her and had been in a car accident coming up to Karamoja! But amazingly, Bob Wright and Jesse Van Gorkom, missionaries with Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC) in Namalu, a town an hour from where we live in Nabilatuk, happened to be in the city and came across the accident, recognised Waffle from a Facebook picture he once saw, and stopped to help!

 Val then asked if Julie could come and visit Summer and I for a few days while Waffle recovered and Val cared for him. Without asking Summer, I yell "Yes, yes of course we'd love to have her!", knowing that my team-mate is always up for visitors! So come Tuesday, the exchange had taken place, Bob had Julie from Val, and Val had her Waffle. Summer and I picked up Dr Julie from OPC and spent the rest of the week having great fun. Waffle had broken a few ribs in the accident but is a very brave man, barely complaining, just happy to be here.

On Wednesday, we all went to Okutoot village for a Spray Day. Okutoot is another village where we have started a Bible study with a few people, as a spin-off from the Bible storying; a more in depth look at God's Word together.

So we sprayed the animals for ticks and got to do many, many treatments for sick cattle, goats and sheep. One of these days I'm hoping to get a donkey case!

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

It was a particularly productive day, spraying 564 cows and goats and treating around 70 animals. Scarily, all of those animals really needed treating, many with fevers of over 41 degrees Celsius! We saw a number of East Coast Fever calves, wormy cows, cows with trypanosomiasis, contageous bovine pleural pneumonia and anaplasmosis - so it's a good thing we tick sprayed so many of them as many of those diseases are tick-borne.

It was great to have a vet with me, even if only for a short time.

Only Two Months Remaining

Thursday week ago we arrived back in Nabilatuk at 8:30 pm after driving 6 hours (for me) from Soroti and a total of 11 hours for Summer, from Jinja. The roads were rough but now that it is dry season, it's the pot holes causing the pain, not the mud that slides you any which way that you pray the truck won't flip over.

So glad to be back and with us came 100 chicks (tiny-tiny - "They're so fluffy I'm gunna die!" - 'Despicable Me' quote) that had hatched Wednesday evening. Thus they've only just entered this crazy world to be brought up to Karamoja so they can get used to the harsh climate, necessary basically from birth. The first three weeks with them, (most of October) are the most crucial. They need to be taught to drink and feed and they must be kept warm at all times (between 30-35 degrees Celsius). So the first week we will sleep in the chicken hut with them, wake every two hours to encourage them to eat and drink by tapping on their feeders and making chicken noises, bababababeraaaa! - I kid you not.  Then from there we will check on them at 9pm, 12 am, 3am and 6am (Summer and I rotating times).

The fire in the pot keeps them warm

 Valentina, a local woman employed by KACHEP, who was there for the last chicken project knows what you have to do to make this a success, and she is the real mother hen of the three of us. I really like looking after them too, I want them to succeed very badly! The plan is that 5 pre-chosen 'vulnerable' community members will each receive 10 chickens (They will be given out in February when they're already laying and have had all their vaccinations) and KACHEP will have 50 chickens for income generating to help cover the cost of the feed- which is very expensive because there is really only one company in Uganda actually selling quality feed, so the demand is there.

Every week the chicks  will get a vaccination (every Thursday), continuing for four weeks. The first is starting from day 7 (age 7 days) which is for Newcastle Disease, then day 14 and day 21 for Infectious Bursa Disease (Gumburo) and day 28 for Infectious Bronchitis. A month later they will be vaccinated for Typhoid and then they are pretty much done except for boosters for Newcastle Disease and a vaccine for Fowl Pox early January.

Last week Summer and I did the first 'Bible Club' at the local primary school as an afterschool program and it was probably the highlight of the week! We had the whole school to start with and Summer told the story of David and Goliath and did 1 Samuel 16:7 as the memory verse. Then Summer took the grade 3s and did some English teaching and I took the grade 6s and did soccer sports with them! Drills then a game, and jump rope for the girls who weren't into soccer.
I am so happy that the village Bible studies are going again and now it's our goal in the next 6 weeks to turn them over completely to the women who host them. So they will be the ones to tell the group the story and ask the questions, not us. Pray for that :)

Only 2 months left here for me. October and November, then at the beginning of December I will pack my bags, leaving a lot of my clothes for women here, go down to Jinja, spend a week with friends there, then head to Kenya to meet my sponsor child. On the 14th I start my journey home, flying first to Singapore to spend a week with my good buddy Sonja Graml who is a ministry worker there and then fly back to Melbourne, arriving 2 days before Christmas. It's going to be a hectic three months before I return to the land of Aus. Let's see what God has in store for me!

 Things you can be praying for:

 - Pray I don't check out too early and that I can continue to make the most of every opportunity while I am here.

 - Pray for the success of the chicken project: that it can be a blessing to the Nabilatuk community

 - Praise point that a German couple, Simon (Bible storier) and Carina (veterinarian) are coming out here next year to join Summer as the start of a new team but continue to pray for workers for this harvest.

 - Pray for our ministry activities still on-going; Bible studies and storying, vet treatments and trainings, 'Bible club' at the local primary school with a bible talk & memory verse, and soccer & skipping games with me and English learning for the kids with Summer. 

Ride for Refuge

Dennis' Story

 "It was dark when they came in to my village and set it on fire. It was 1993, West Uganda and I don't remember much of that night, I don't remember how they killed my mum and my dad, only of hearing it afterward, I just remember being taken. Kony and his men kidnapped us small ones and made us walk for days and days with no food or water. We were all tied together as we marched along and beat us if we were slow. One boy tied with us died in those few days of marching, but they wouldn't untie him, they made us drag him along with us. We reached a river that was higher than we were tall. All I remember was fear as we crossed, still all tied together as a group.

Once I escaped from the LRA and I just ran. I had no plan, I just ran and ran until I could go no further. I thought I was free but they caught up with me and beat me as they brought me back to do their work of terrorising. That's all we seemed to ever do.

Quite a few years later the Ugandan police found us and arrested us. It was in prison that I found peace. A Christian group was advocating for the education of ex-child soldiers so that on release we could have some skills to get employment. I learnt how to lay cement & bricks, build structures like houses and walls and I learnt about Jesus. I could not forgive myself before this for all that I had done and I could not forgive those who had made me do it either. It was only through having Jesus in my life and knowing that he takes all that sin and pain away by his work on the cross that I could let it all go and be who I am today.

When I was released from prison I tried to return to my village. I am a Cholie by tribe and I went back to see if any of my people were there, but no one would accept me home. Too many of my tribe were fearful of what we had done in our past and wouldn't let us come home. That is why I came here to Soroti, but now I feel happy to be able to minister to boys who have been put through what I was put through. Together, with the help of our mighty God, we can strive to let go of the past and make decisions to change our future, knowing that God alone will come again to judge the living and the dead, to bring justice, and that I am covered and protected by the blood of Jesus Christ."  

This is the testimony of one of the members that I heard on Saturday's bike ride "Ride for refuge" to raise awareness for ex-child soldiers. We rode 25km to the Obalinga mass grave site, where 360 people are buried. They are all people who died in the LRA insurgence on the 16th June 2003. When we got there the site was all over grown with weeds and so we had to hoe and slash the whole area (hard work in the African sun!). We then had a memorial ceremony and cycled back to our base to have lunch together.

 Many of the men who cycled have similar stories as Dennis, but many have not been able to adjust to normal life again like he has. Many are in severe inner turmoil, suffering greatly over their sense of identity (as rejection from family members and tribe members is very common), over guilt and over anger. Many are angry with God, not believing that he was suffering along with them as he watched every evil and wicked deed they were a part of, not knowing that he is the opposite to all of that, he is love. Many don't know what to do with themselves and see Jesus as their only hope but don't know where to go from there.

So much prayer and wisdom is needed for them and for the patient souls who are working with them, walking with them each step of the way, hearing their stories, and letting God heal them and bring them back to Him, for His purposes. 

Small animal surgery at Dr Val's

  Surgeries!

Wednesday 26/9/12

 Today Dr Liz from Oregan in the US, and I did 8 surgeries (2 neuters and 6 spays) and yes, I got my birthday wish, I completed a whole spay and neuter, solo. Most of the others I did half of, and Liz did the other half, as I am not very efficient at it yet.

For the vets interested out there, here is some info on doing surgery on an office desk :) We did it all 'clean' as opposed to aseptic. It was 'field work' so we did the surgeries on the only space available, on someone's desk in the CLIDE* office! We gave the dogs Acepromazine first to chill them out a little, then a mix of ketamine and Valium (50% of each in the required dose, IV) and then gave half of that dose again once the dog was prepped for surgery and we were beginning and then as needed, we topped up with Propofol.

 

 On the field, as they say, you use whatever you have and these all worked really well! The animals went down and woke up really smoothly. Antibiotics were given afterwards because the surgery was 'clean' not aseptic and because they will most likely be rolling around in bacteria-ridden dirt before too long.

The cats were given what is called 'kitty magic' - I think the drug companies came up with that one- which is 0.1ml each of Torbugesic, Ketamine and Dexdomitor for every 5kg. Ooh and I learnt a new trick it's called the 'clove-hitch knot' and I've used it with tying up horses and boats before but never seen it in a surgery, so that was cool to learn. Hopefully we'll get to do some more next week as well and when we go to Karamoja on Wed next week, there as well :)

 *CLIDE stands for Community Livestock-Integrated Development (consultancy), it has four offices, two in Karamoja, one here in Soroti and one in Kampala. It is another Christian Veterinarian Mission outlet here in Uganda.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Veterinary Symposium in Kampala

17-23rd September Oliotya!

 Heya, from Kampala, Uganda at Mackerere University, where I have spent this last week, listening to lectures, meeting other veterinary students and doing surgery practicals in the afternoons. The program has been run by the Ugandan Christian Veterinary Mission and has been fantastic fun; learning, laughing and loving each other (as my new US friends say). Five Americans flew over for the time (some are staying a bit longer as well) on a mission trip, they're mostly small animal veterinary surgeons who have been doing the lectures & surgeries (they brought all the vet materials we're using over with them!).

The week has also been a great opportunity to hear of the faith of the students and to fellowship with them. The lectures have been on many different topics, ranging from 'client communication' to complex surgeries to common skin diseases. In most of the lectures we've looked at the theoretical side of certain surgeries; cystotomy, gastrotomy, enterotomy, intestinal anastamoses, speys, neuters, opthamological surgeries, even fluid therapy for post operation, etc.

The students seemed really excited that I was a student too (as all the other mzungus we're real docs haha) and very interested to hear what vet work in Karamoja is like! Many of the students still hold to their culture of segregation of the Karamajong even subconsciously looking down on them as lesser than they are, which comes out when I speak to them about my work. Back home we have such a culture of being politically correct and even if you secretly think badly of someone you would never show it or say it. Of course, ignorance in what the K'jong are really like (these students and most of the Ugandans living outside of Karamoja have never been or met a traditional K'jong, they just know what they've been told of them) will always breed distance and even disdain or fear. That seems to be a fact of culture clashes throughout history and throughout the world today, even a funny example of this is the way the Karamajong harshly judge a woman for wearing pants. To the women down here at the bottom of Uganda in Kampala, wearing pants is a sign of an educated woman. To the Karamajong, wearing pants is saying that you are basically a prostitute (no joke, from their mouths not mine), showing the shape of your legs is very provocative. A simple thing like that means two very different things to two different people of the same country.
Getting to know the yanks and also the two new couples joining CLIDE (one couple are from the US, the other from England) has also been a real highlight of the week. They are a really jovial group of people & we get along like houses-a-fire :) Usually we have the dining room to ourselves at meal times because our group is so loud laughing and joking around with each other! Plus there is 11 or more of us at any one time together too which is fun after being used to 2 plus (Summer & I plus our local friends) in Nabilatuk.

Outreach.... So on Thursday afternoon we drove about 5 hours to a village called Namaingo (pronounced Namai-yingo) for large animal treatments (cattle, goats, pigs, sheep, etc.) and outreach (talking to anyone interested about Jesus). This village is classified as a 'hard to reach' area in Christian circles which just means an area of a high Muslim population and possibly hostile to hearing about Jesus, which we saw in reality a few times.

Our purpose was simply to show the love of Jesus by serving them in a way that means a LOT to them, i.e. treating their animals, and if anyone was interested, talking about Jesus too! The first morning, I almost got heatstroke because we were treating from 9am to 1pm in direct sun (there were no trees around) and I hadn't brought my akubra down with me. But we treated heaps of animals, saw a lot of Trypanosomyasis, East Coast Fever, Anaplasmosis, lumpy skin disease, mites (mange/scabies), ticks, lice, ringworm, etc. Also an aborting cow, which we narrowed down the diagnosis to leptospirosis or brucellosis. A cow with a dislocated hip; we looked so funny, about 10 of us trying to rotate & push the hip to pop the femur back in, but sadly we couldn't get it  in :( But the small animal vets assure me that it is hard enough to do in a dog, let alone a 200kg cow.  We tick sprayed and dewormed everything (until we ran out of medicine) and just had a great time. I was able to teach the students a lot too which was awesome from my work with all these diseases all year and they also didn't have very safe animal handling skills, so we talked about where to stand when you are injecting in the flank muscles, etc. They were so much fun, every morning and evening we'd have a worship singing and praise time and I can't help thinking that when I go home worship won't be the same, Africans are so passionate :)

So, in the afternoon of the first day (Friday) we were going to two villages (our group was split up) but at the first location, there were no animals! Then we heard that there was a rumour being spread around by the villagers that we were going to kill their animals if we treated them. So we went to the second location and we got the same story and some of the students said, maybe we should just go back to town but Dr Val disagreed and said, "let's see why God has brought us here". So we sat down with the town chief/mayor and some local council members (and the whole village in addition crowded around us) and introduced ourselves and what we were there to do. It transpired that the story originated from the fact that there was a veterinary group that came to them a few years ago distributing vaccinations to their animals. The vaccines however were no good/seriously dodgy (probably well expired or poorly made) and they made the injection site necrotic (dead) and the animals got a systemic infection and died!
So, wow that's really bad and we had to do some damage control and assure them that we were not going to bring them bad medicines. But eep! I couldn't believe such a thing had happened!

That day I didn't do much treating of animals but I spoke to the people who had gathered there and got to know them and they wanted to know why we had come, where I was from, and a few of them wanted to become Christians! (they call it being 'born again' here - based on the fact that when you become a Christian your life changes and you put off your old self and put on your new self, like being born again..because so many people here call themselves Christians when they really aren't) so we prayed with them and it was so amazing to see the smiles on their faces! We talked with them about getting a group of new elievers together to pray regularly and fellowship together. Christianity is not a solo sport haha.

All in all it was a fantastic fantastic week! I joked with another full time missionary there how much I loved gate crashing other people's short term missions 'cause they are just so much fun! A few of the visiting vets are flying back to America tonight and I'm really gunna miss them! One of them was Paris Hilton's vet (not the reason I am going to miss her however haha). This afternoon we drive to Soroti to do some more vet work with the remainder of the mission group and we'll then continue on to Moroto/Kangole in Karamoja for a bit more. You may remember this is the place I spent some time with Dr Val and CLIDE and also did the brucellosis testing. For my birthday I secretly hoping for a solo surgery here in Africa. I have already done half a spay and half a neuter, so hopes are high! 6 days to go :)