Muanisolo

April 11, 2006

Whew! Busy day! We were taken by boat to Vunisei (different from Vunisea). It is towards the northern part of the island, at the ‘skinny’ part. We walked overland to the other side, where we were picked up by boat and taken to our villages. My team went to Junior’s village, Muanisolo. From the water, it was not apparent that there was anything there–we had to walk uphill about a kilometer. Junior took us to his house and we met his mother. We then went to the community center, where we set up. There were four dogs waiting right away. We sedated the first two and got started. The firsts, a male, seizured under anesthetic, so we had to give some valium. The seizure stopped, and the surgery went well. All the dogs looked alike, and were likely related, so we decided to give some valium in all the anesthetic protocols.

The next dog was a female, and we had difficulty with her as well. The area where the ovaries are removed started bleeding after being tied off, so Gord had me glove up to help him out. We found the source, and tied it off; she recovered well.

We had a wonderful lunch of kasava and fish samosas made by Junior’s mom. Once again, we felt totally and completely welcomed. We asked Junior’s mom about his growing up–he is the mischievous one of the group of guys at the resort. He is a lot of fun, and has been extremely helpful to all the teams. He has said that he would like to be a Vet and it shows. He picks things up very quickly, just watching us, and then doing. We have encouraged him to look into going to Australia to Vet school.

Junior’s Mom

On the way back to work from lunch, we picked up three male puppies to neuter–they are so cute! So young, but while we are here, we want to sterilize as many as possible to avoid poisoning…
It was a fantastic day and we ended up doing 19 surgeries in all! Seventeen dogs and two cats, including Junior’s dog (9 years old!) and cat, and an 11 year old dog. Most of the dogs don’t live to this old an age. We are exhausted, it is 4:30, and we have been going since about 9am. It is a good exhausted.

My favorite dog of the trip–don’t know why, just a sweet guy…

The elders insist that we have just one ‘low tide’ with them before we go for the day. They are most grateful: “Thank you for coming to help our village and God Bless You”. We are honoured.

The hike home

A very long day, we didn’t get back to the resort until after 6pm, after walking back over the hill to catch our boat home. We got to see a wonderful sunset. We had dinner, played a bit of cards, and listened to some singing by Zacchariah. A great end to a great day.