Busier Day Today

A busier day today… each team did at least 10 animals. My team did 9 dogs and 4 cats. We were doing surgery under the palm trees on the beach! Got some good pics, which we’ll post to the web site soon.

The villagers are amazingly hospitable. They just welcome you. The kids hold our hands and crawl all over us. We bring candies and toys for them, and they love it.

We went to Vo’s village (Daku) today, about a 20 minute boat ride. Vo is one of the fellows that works at the resort we are staying at, who have been helping us in the
villages. We have one or two of them each day with each group, and they talk to the chiefs and set things up for us.

We were immediately taken to Vo’s parents house and invited in to have some lime juice and bread with lemon. His kids and wife were there also. He works at the resort during the week, and goes home when he can. Not every night, or every weekend. The women are very much the servers here… although some men do laundry and serve as well.

We got set up and went to work on the surgeries. Vo’s wife made us delicious chicken and noodles in soy for lunch and we had a picnic on the beach. Back to work, and when we were done, they had a kava ceremony. Too much kava… Vo was vomiting on the beach, and I did not feel well at all. Much stronger kava than here at the resort. Then a boat ride home.

I don’t think the photos will be able to express the feeling of being here, I guess they never do. The people just amaze me, so friendly. We finally feel today as though we did some good work. Not that we didn’t the other days, just not the numbers we wanted, 30 a day. We finally achieved that today. Not getting all the dogs, or cats, but at least we are helping to keep the population down. We may have to come back in a few years though, and do this again!