http://www.natalodge.com
Kelly, Megan, KC and I spent Friday morning gathering the supplies we needed and packed the truck to make the 4 hour trek east to Nata. We had no idea what we were in for. Gobe offered us free lodging and meals at Nata Lodge but we weren’t sure what the “lodge” was going to be like. Kelly said they use the term "lodge" here loosely. Sometimes it's a tent in the bush and sometimes it's a full on safari lodge that can cost upwards of $2,000 USD per night to stay there!
After we were all packed up, we were not even out of Maun when we witnessed a horrible accident on the road. That was the first time I have ever actually seen an accident happen with my own two eyes. A man in a small silver car decided it would be a good idea to pass 5 cars at once. He was two cars behind us. The second car in line (two in front of us) also decided to pass the car in front of him and they ended up crashing. The car went on it’s side and skidded to the side of the road. The other vehicle was actually a big Land Rover and it didn’t even have a scratch on it. Kelly was driving for us and immediately pulled over and we checked to see if the man in the car was OK. Luckily he walked out of the car on his own power. Both front airbags had deployed and the body of the car was a mess. The engine was steaming and just as we were worried it would catch fire a man jumped out of his truck with a huge knife and cut something under the car (I’m assuming the fuel line). He was like Botswanan MacGyver! It was cool! Once we determined the situation was under control we went on our way. There are crazy drivers everywhere in the world!
On our road trip we didn’t just have the usual cows, goats and donkeys around and on the road. We also had a herd of zebras cross in front of us and I saw a lone ostrich hanging out under a tree on the side of the road. The zebras were super cool! Something you’d never see in ‘Murica!
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| Cow crossing |
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| Zebra crossing |
We had to stop at a Foot and Mouth Disease prevention station about halfway to Nata. This is seriously a joke. We had to stop the car and every passenger had to go over and walk on this tiny squishy pad of some solution and stomp our feet. Then we had to get back in the car and drive through this “pit” for lack of a better word, that was filled with some solution and water I guess. It didn’t really say. Kelly said these things never get changed and it’s a complete waste of time. Some of the stations, she said, will make you go through the car and your luggage and take out all the shoes and stamp them in the solution and then put them back in the car. They don’t supervise you. They don’t tell you how much time to spend stomping. You just stomp and go. She also said not all the stations have the pit you drive through so in that case they just spray your tires with the solution and it doesn’t even get the tread. They just “spritz” the outer rim. OMG. This whole “district” where Nata is located is supposedly FMD-free so they have a fence all around it to keep other hooved animals out and if they do come in they get shot. Craziness……
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| Me in my flip flops in the FMD footpath |
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| Driving through the FMD "pit" |
We arrived about 4pm local time in Nata. There are three fuel stations literally all right next to each other, a couple local-type fast food restaurants and that is it. Some locals have booths set up on the side of the road to sell things. There are various "shops" (cinder block or just wood) set up but there never seemed to be anyone there. The village was just compromised of huts and then everyone once in a while you would see an actual house built but it wouldn't have any windows or running water, etc. It was very interesting.
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| Typical village hut |
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| Donkey drinking from puddle in front of butchery |
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| Bus Stop |
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| Nata Lodge |
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| My bed donning the mosquito net! |
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| The outdoor shower |
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| The bathroom |
The lodge set up breakfast for us early so we can get to the village by 7am. We tried to start surgery at 8am. We kept performing surgery until there was no more for us to do that day or it became dark. Whichever came first. We were only allowed to do surgery on “owned” animals. We couldn't drive around and pick up strays. It is very hard to determine which are owned and strays anyway because they all just roam around free. The lodge had a few cats they were feeding there so they asked us to catch and sterilization them. We were able to catch one male and one female. The male cat was SUPER cool. He walked right into the carrier for us on the first day. We named him George. He came to see us off every morning and then sat with us during dinner each evening. He would come when I called him. LOVED him!
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| "George" - handsome boy! |
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| Megan, Amber & George selfie! |
I’m not sure why the people brought their animals for surgery. It’s sad but they don’t really seem to care about the animals. They don’t feed or water them; the dogs have to forage for themselves. They drink from puddles and rummage through trash for food. When we put a water bowl out in front of them they didn’t even know what to do with it. They were actually scared of it! The people rarely pet them. When the owners are given the aftercare instructions (in their language, Setswana) they actually laugh when it mentions to make sure the animals have food and water. UGH. I guess I can see it though. The kids here have absolutely nothing. They hardly have clean water to drink themselves. All their clothes are dirty and have holes in them. They haven’t bathed in God knows how long. I guess we can’t really expect them to take better care of the animals than they do of themselves or their kids. It’s a difficult situation.
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| Kelly offering a puppy water |
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| Waiting for their animals - check out the expressions on their faces. LOL |
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| Skinny puppies waiting for surgery |
The people have no real sense of what surgery is, what an infection is, what pain is or fleas/ticks/worms. Nothing. Despite it all, these dogs are loyal to their family. The follow them around everywhere with no collar or leash on. They stay right next to them. When they recover from surgery, if the owner has left, they just walk themselves home. It's crazy. Mostly children were bringing the animals in for surgery. Some are carrying the dogs for long distances to get there. After surgery they carry them home if the dog can’t walk. Some people take them home in wheelbarrows. Others left the area in a cart pulled by donkeys. Unreal.
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| Cute puppy |
The same kids showed up every day with different dogs. We recognized them because they wore the same dirty clothes each day :( They each must have 5 or 6 dogs! We gave the kids our lunches and crackers that we had with us and in turn they helped us out a bit. One kid had the whole weighing the dogs thing down pat. Every time someone new would come up to us with a dog he took them to the scale and told them what to do. It was super cute! They helped us pack up in the evening and some liked to watch surgery. I let them listen to one of the anesthetized dog’s heart beat with my stethoscope. They seemed to really like that! I enjoyed having them around.
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| Strong boy! |
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| Watching surgery |
Luckily we had pleasant weather overall. The first day was unbearably hot but it rained the next day so that cooled things off a bit. Don’t get me wrong, it was still hot but significantly cooler by far! Most days were on and off sunny/overcast. We worked under a huge tent that we used for surgery prep, recovery and instrument cleaning/autoclaving. My surgery table was set up under a tree outside for the first day. The subsequent days we used a gazebo set up under the trees that worked quite well.
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| The Tent |
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| Surgery outside under a tree |
The sights/sounds doing surgery were really funny! I have never done surgery with a rooster crowing in the background, random goats running through the surgery area, a mother hen and her baby pecking about my feet, giant dung beetles and millipedes scurrying about or donkeys pulling carts up and down the street with bells around their necks. It was a trip! Never a dull moment!
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| Chicken and chick |
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| Donkey Cart |
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| GIANT dung beetle walking through surgery |
We were working on the grounds where the state veterinarian has his office. He drove in one day with a dead Cape Buffalo in his truck bed. He asked me if I wanted to come see it and of course I said yes! Apparently it happened to wander into a district that is considered Foot & Mouth Disease Free so it had to be shot due to risk of disease spread/outbreak. I was told it took eight people to pick up the dead buffalo and put it in the truck bed. I wish I had seen that! They stopped at the office to get supplies to go bury the buffalo outside of town. They have to dig a hole, burn the body and then cover it. Yikes!
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| Cape Buffalo in truck bed |
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| Cape Buffalo |
In total I did 106 surgeries in 5 days! One day I did 17 dog spays and 10 dogs neuters. That is a lot of surgeries! Here is the breakdown:
Females: 59 dogs (7 were pregnant - I mean, hugely pregnant)
2 cats
Males: 44 dogs (2 cyrptorchids & 1 scrotal ablation)
1 cats (cryptorchid)
There was one old dog with a right testicle avulsion due to injury. I had to remove his entire scrotum (called scrotal ablation). It was the last surgery of the day on our second day (after 11 hours of surgery already) and it was fairly extensive. I had to do the majority of the surgery by headlamp at dusk, outside, under a tree, in the rain. That dog went home still groggy from surgery with his owners in a cart pulled by two donkeys. I am not making this stuff up!
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| Testicular avulsion |
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| Finished ablation |
Of course I couldn’t have done a thing without my amazing vet nurses, Kelly and Megan, and my assistant, KC. They are just super. I will be sad when Kelly and Megan leave in a couple weeks :(
On our last day in Nata we got a treat! The lodge took us out bright and early for a tour of the Makgadikgadi Salt Pans. The Makgadikgadi Pan, a salt pan situated in the middle of the dry savanna of north-eastern Botswana, is one of the largest salt flats in the world. The pan is all that remains of the formerly enormous Lake Makgadikgadi, which once covered an area larger than Switzerland, but dried up several thousand years ago. We saw some amazing birds and mammals. Right now there is plenty of water there. It almost looks like an ocean. That is not normally the case though. When it dries up the animals basically leave the area until the water returns.
Birds:
Northern Black Heron - “helicopter bird”
Kestrel
Clapper Lark
Spoonbill
Greater Flamingo
Great White Pelican
Mammals:
Blue Wildebeest
Springbok
Who would have thought I’d find flamingos and pelicans in the middle of Africa?
Unfortunately, we got rained out about 1-1/2 hours into our trip and had to go back to the lodge. The guide told us that the previous day a bus hit an elephant on the main road about 5km east from the lodge. When the locals get wind of something like this happening they designate one person from the family to go down there with knives to cut some meat and bring it home. They can only take as much as the family can eat within 2 days as none of them have refrigeration although I doubt there is someone there referring this event. Nothing goes to waste here. I asked the guide if we could go look at it (I know, I’m morbid) but I was out-voted. No one else wanted to go so, sadly, I have no photos. The guide did mention that the government sends someone out to gather the tusks. Even if the animal is dead it is considered poaching to remove the tusks.
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| KC, Megan and Amber |
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| Megan & Kelly cold and wet from the rain |
Our the drive back to Maun we stopped to see the Baobab trees. Baobab is the common name of a genus of trees (Adansonia). There are eight species. Six species live in Madagascar, one in mainland Africa, and one in Australia. The baobab is the national tree of Madagascar.
Other common names include 'boab', 'boaboa', 'bottle tree', 'the tree of life', 'upside-down tree', and 'monkey bread tree'. The trees reach heights of 5 to 30 metres (16 to 98 ft) and trunk diameters of 7 to 11 metres (23 to 36 ft). Its trunk can hold up to 120,000 litres of water. For most of the year, the tree is leafless, and looks very much like it has its roots sticking up in the air. They are big and really cool!
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| Baobab Tree |
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| Me in front of the Baobab |
The trees are long-lived, but just how long is disputed. The owners of Sunland Farm in Limpopo, South Africa have built a pub called "The Big Baobab Pub" inside the hollow trunk of the 22 metres (72 ft) high tree. The tree is 47 m (155 ft) in circumference, and is said to have been carbon dated at over 6,000 years old. I would love to go there and see that!
We are back at the cottage in Maun now taking a couple days to relax then we pack up again and head out for a two day outreach in another village. This one is about 1-1/2 hours drive away so we will be driving back and forth daily.
More later from the bush!
"The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well."
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
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