Honduras Equitarian Project November 22, 2013 Blog 8 At 5 AM this morning, Chelsey, Marta, and David awoke to say goodbye to the Honduran veterinary students and Dr. Caballero. Our Honduran partners headed off to Tegucigalpa and Catacamas to allow everyone time to travel to their home town to participate in the national and local elections on Sunday. (Yes, Julie and Tracy slept in to encourage his better health.) Several of the students had come by the night before to say yet another thank you and give us small, colorful, handmade tokens of their friendship. This partnership has impacted all of us deeply. We headed over to the World Horse Welfare office this morning in Victor’s small pick-up, with David and Chelsey bravely riding in the back as we dodged through traffic and bumped along small, unpaved roads as we drew nearer to the office. Strangely, there are no street names in Choluteca, challenging nonresidents to find their way around. Traffic lights are a rarity, but one way streets are common, leading to many close calls, horn toots, and daring assertive pushes in the city’s congested main streets. The office seemed very quiet without the students’ good natured bantering. Chelsey immediately headed off to begin the care ritual for the injured gray mare, Melissa. The mare seemed a little more tired this morning but was bearing a bit more weight on the injured limb. The French braid in her tail had limited the spread of wound discharge around her hindquarters, making cleaning her up a bit quicker. With David and Tracy’s help, a final thorough flushing of the wound pockets was done and a regional limb perfusion with antibiotics was attempted under xylazine/ketamine anesthesia, from which she woke up well. In the meantime, Julie presented an hour long session on neonates to two community-based equine advisors and WHW’s most eager farrier student, Marcos. Marta managed to finish running the fecal parasite checks while dashing back and forth to help with the mare. For another change, the prepared breakfast this morning was pancakes, a tasty alternative to the more traditional Honduran meal on preceding mornings. Soon we had our supply suitcases and Action Packer bins ready to go, only to belatedly learn that the community horses would not be gathering before noon. We took advantage of this delay by charging off to the grocery store for more topical medications for the mare and some of the foods we have been craving. Of course, we bought Tracy a lot more Gator Ade. On a cultural note, there was a sign on the grocery store entrance announcing that there would be no liquor sales beginning tomorrow morning at 6 AM until after the elections. This seems reasonable, given the fervor of the Hondureños for their favorite candidates. Our worksite today was a soccer field with a fringe of shade on the outskirts of Choluteca. The community was nestled below the beautiful high hills we had been admiring since our arrival. After passing a number of prosperous-looking homes on the way there, we were disappointed to find the field and its perimeter were just as trash strewn as our earlier worksites. The WHW staff also told us not to spread out and to have someone keep an eye on our supplies, as thefts had been experienced previously in this community. We were soon surrounded by a number of inquisitive children. Julie gave away the last of the Equitarian coloring books, which helped interest even more children in what we were doing. Marta and Chelsey efficiently began physical examinations on the gathered animals, and David addressed dental concerns. Julie filled out the data forms and worked on owner education. One of our community-based equine advisors helped with deworming. We were a little surprised by how many of the animals were brought to us by very young boys, some even thinner than their horses. There were 4 donkeys in reasonable shape amongst the horses. All worked carrying firewood into the city. Alas, we found that all but one of the horses had a low body condition score, and not a single owner wanted to castrate his animal. With further questioning, at least one stallion owner said he could not afford to rest his horse for 2 weeks post castration. Several said their malnourished stallion had such good behavior, that there was no reason for castration. We soon had a dangerous melee going on, as a stallion was loose in the work area and persistently tried to visit every mare and stallion tied to a tree in our vicinity. Numerous pleas to have this trouble instigator caught and restrained were ignored. The local men actually found all of this studly behavior amusing. More education is needed before we come again next year! The most interesting case today was a 20 year old, thin tired mare, who had been recently purchased under the misguided notion that she was 6. She had previously fractured her distal sacrum, resulting in a very caved in croup, reduced tail tone, and soiling of her tail due to her inability to lift it fully to urinate and defecate. She also had a plaque of painful edema on her left ventral abdomen and an open sore on her nose from a harsh rope used as a noseband. Omar made her a splendid padded noseband to allow the lesion to heal. She aroused even greater sympathy after her sedation for dentistry when the loose stallion tried to unsuccessfully breed her. We had seen her young owner repeatedly hit her with a stick to get her to move forward, so we demonstrated a noisy plastic bag on the end of the stick to encourage him to use an auditory/visual motivator instead of force. Another horse had a healed machete wound on his back. Tracy, somewhat bored with his guarding duties and lack of surgical prospects, struck up a conversation with the small boys who seemed fascinated by his moustache and hat. One of them, Denny, actually could speak quite a few words in English, and began teasing Tracy for being a Hollywood cowboy. Denny was clearly bright, although small for his age (12). He told us he wants to build houses when he grows up. A few packages of crayons remained, so Julie gave those to this group of friendly boys. She told Denny that she did not understand why the community kept throwing trash on their nice soccer field. Denny said, “They are pigs!” Wow, there is hope for cultural change in this new generation! This conversation led to a deal, spawned by Denny’s wish to have a radio controlled toy race car. Julie offered to bring two for this group of guys next year, IF they would become a team and pick up all of the trash on and around the soccer field before we arrived next year. The deal was sealed with a lot of handshakes and a photo of the trash clean up gang. We returned to the WHW office under the glow of a beautiful sunset, only to find out that our last day of community work had been cancelled. The carthorse owners all want to participate in the planned pre-election events tomorrow, so we will use our time in the morning to sort through the remaining supplies before undertaking the return trip to Tegucigalpa. The day ended well with a real dinner at an Italian restaurant in a nearby mall, where we probably set a new record for hilarious laughing as we shared stories of our past youthful misadventures and other family tales. Blog by Julie Wilson
Posted on: Sun, 24 Nov 2013 05:51:08 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015