de-worming goats

today was definitely amongst my favourite of kenya work days. we headed out to villager's homes in the hills, joined once again by the village elder, and proceeded to de-worm their goats. it's an initiative camp kenya started up to help the local community as they depend heavily upon goats for survival and many of the beasts die or become useless due to illness..

every goat had to be dragged out and immobilized whilst one person wrestled to get its mouth open and the other plunged the syringe full of medicine down its throat. although it might sound simple, it's harder than it looks to get a stubborn goat to open wide!! it was pretty chaotic.. goats running amuck and bleating at the top of their lungs, kids calling to their mothers and getting tangled up in our legs, some of them trying to spit the bright green liquid out again.. the dosage was 2, 4 or 6 ml depending upon the size of the animal so there were people running around with various syringes trying to find an open mouth. we all threw ourselves into the challenge with enthusiasm and, with the help of the local children, managed to get every goat medicated (:

we had two households remaining on the list and the more goats we medicated, the bolder we became (: by the end of the morning, i was wrestling big crazy-eyed goats into submission and prying their teeth apart as opposed to merely squirting the liquid into their mouths as the village elder held them in place. at the last homestead we ended up also having a handful of sheep (absolute nutters) and a cow to de-worm. it was so much fun!!

something that really struck me was that at one of the households a little boy was playing outside and as soon as he saw us walking towards him he just broke down into hysterical crying and sprinted towards his mum, absolutely petrified. he was inconsolable and spent the entire time inside the house waiting until we'd left. it was explained that we were the first white people he'd ever seen and he simply didn't know what to make of us.. it really made it more apparent how isolated these scattered village huts are from the rest of the world..

~~

after lunch, another game drive.. half of us stayed back at camp but i was happy just sitting in the back of the bus listening to music and watching the landscapes around us. once we returned that afternoon we were all pretty restless and eventually out of our boredom arose a strange 'fight club' where we convinced a few pairs of people to wrestle and see who could pin the other down first. it was pretty hilarious.. jasmine vs chris, seb vs joe, matt vs david, seb vs chris, matt vs gerry.. nobody got hurt and it was all fun and games but the mood was incredible with everyone cheering and all the wrestlers getting incredibly dirty (: a few members of the kitchen staff came to watch and stood there laughing, totally perplexed as to what was going on. unfortunately for me none of the girls seemed to want to verse me but i had a great time regardless :p definitely an afternoon to remember..