Rain Rain Go Away

We lost our first volleyball game on Friday, but we had so much fun doing it in the pouring rain!  On Saturday during Open House, a student came over to us to tell us that she found a kitten outside of the dorms and was keeping it in her dorm room.  PAWS of course, took it in, but luckily it already has a home.  The rest of the day I  helped a friend study for her Physiology exam (everyone knows how much we all love physio here).  A friend had her birthday dinner at Spice Mill, which was amazingly good food and drinks.  Then on Sunday, at PAWS Adoption Day, we adopted out one of our older dogs which was great!  No cats though :(  That night, there was a pot luck dinner at a friend's house.


I think it has rained every day this semester so far....welcome to hurricane season (again).
We gave our Necropsy presentation on Monday which I think went pretty well.  Unfortunately, that night, I went to make pancakes for my breakfast for the next day, and there were bugs.  It was a brand new box.   Then I went to check my breadcrumbs to double check, bugs. Half full container. I decided to check tea and sugar and flour. Bugs, bugs, bugs. The flour was a brand new package, I used it once. SO sick of this.
Tuesday there was a surgery club meeting about laser surgery at lunch that I went to.  I also stayed after class to study pathology and bacteriology with some friends.
On Wednesday, Pink semester (my semester) had our multicultural bake sale that went very well.  I am doing another research project and had a meeting for that at lunch.  I am doing a project on Trichuris spp in cats with Dr. Jennifer Ketzis (whom I did the chicken and lice research with), Dr. Mary Pieria, and Dr. Shell.  I had two tutor sessions that afternoon.
Thursday, I met with the pink fundraiser for our Woofstock event that we will be putting on over Midsemester break in order to raise money for our class.  It will basically be a big dog field day with competitions, bathes, and nail trims.  There was another tutor session that afternoon that I went to in order to prepare for my pathology exam on Monday. 
Alex and I ran to the bank and the store Friday morning before class.  After class, I studied with a few friends until the PAWS and SAFE meeting at 1pm.  Tonight will be an early night after volleyball so I can get some studying done.
This weekend will be full of tutor sessions and studying for Pathology on Monday and Bacteriology on Thursday.

Disney Rum Run/Beachfest

Friday was the Disney rum run and everyone looked so good and was so creative!  There was Lilo, two Pocahontas' and John Smith, Jasmine, Alice, Belle, Maid Marian and Peter Pan, Tiana, Rapunzel, Tinkerbell, Jessica Rabbit, Meg, Princess Leia, Arel, Esmeralda, Mickey and Minnie, Mr and Mrs Incredible, Gaston, Mad Hatter, Tony Stark, a pirate, and probably some others that I missed.

 Saturday was Beachfest!

 

Sunday, I met with my necropsy group to work on the paper, did laundry, and caught up on work.

Monday, I studied in the morning, had class from 1-5pm, met with one of PAWS' new foster to bring her supplies, Skyped with Bethany, and worked some more on our necropsy paper.
I had a very long day on Tuesday.  I had class from 9-4pm, with a PAWS meeting at lunch.  My necropsy group then decided to get together again to hopefully finish our paper and presentation.
Wednesday was another even longer day.  I had my first bacteriology lab class from 8-10am, then a break, then class from 1pm to 4pm, followed by a virology tutor session at 4pm and a pharmacology tutor session at 5:30pm.  One of our new PAWS kittens isn't doing well and is at the clinic hopefully getting better!
There was an avian club meeting and my first clinical skills class of the semester on Thursday.  The avian club needs a few club officer positions filled....hmmm....I'm debating....I'm doing a lot this semester and I like it!
There is a VIDA meeting as well as volleyball on Friday! I am apparently signed up for two different teams, so hopefully they won't play each other!
There is a Open House for the university on Saturday that PAWS will have a booth at that I will work from 10-11am and then my friend is having a birthday dinner at Spice Mill.  Our first PAWS adoption day on Sunday and then some friends are having people over for a potluck that night.  Busy busy busy!
 

Julia's Graduation

This weekend Julia graduated from undergrad at UNC!  Congratulations! It was great to see all my family, stocked up on some delicious food, and do a little bit of shopping.

 

I flew back on Monday and slept most of the flight.  I got back to St Kitts around 2pm, did a little unpacking and then went to my 4pm Animal Behavior class.
Tuesday was the club fair, so PAWS was able to get some more fosters signed up.  We also had a PAWS officer meeting that night.
On Wednesday I had a SVCEES meeting to decide if I wanted to join again and also my first tutor session for Virology that night.  We had a double pharmacology class as well.
Thursday was my necropsy day!  Yay to getting it done early in the semester!The case was a dog that presented DOA with a distended abdomen, foaming at the mouth, and unproductive retching.  The owner thought the dog was poisoned, however we found no evidence of how the dog died.  After 3 hours of class in the same room, I had to wait another hour until the Scuba club meeting until I could go home.
I went to port to pick up my package from Taylor on Friday.  Yay!  It was a total surprise, thank you! This morning was "physio without pain" which is basically Dr. Reich's way of teaching us more without having an actual class or grade to worry about. Tonight there is a Disney rum run and I will be dressed as Lilo. 
This weekend is also beachfest!  I will be getting my tan on, on Saturday, and then catching up/getting ahead with some work on Sunday.

I have finished the video from our Africa trip!  Check it out here: ACE video

Start of Third Semester

On Sunday, I was a bit jet-lagged unpacked, checked in for the semester, and got organized for the start of 3rd semester! (Finally)  I went out to dinner with friends to catch up on everyone's break.

This semester I am taking Pathology, Virology, Bacteriology, Pharmacology, and Animal Behavior.  Here is my schedule, although the first couple of weeks are a little different.  I have the bacteriology lab on Wednesday, so I will have Friday afternoons free. Animal behavior is an elective, so that's why it's not shown on the schedule.

Monday :10-11am Pathology Lab, 2-3pm - Virology, 3-4pm - Pathology, 4-5pm - Animal Behavior
I am already getting into the routine of getting to the gym at 7am this semester.  This way I also have some time to study after the gym and before class starts.  I always hate the start of the semester because you find out who is still in school and who has either failed out or failed back.  I always end up losing friends and incredibly hard to see them go.

Tuesday: 11-12pm - Virology, 1-2pm Bacteriology, 2-4pm Pathology
I cleaned out the FCP room from where all our PAWS cats stayed over the break.  I've already had several people contacting me about wanting to adopt cats, so we are off to a good start!  Iron Man 3 is playing here, so I saw that with some friends Tuesday night.

Wednesday: 1-2pm Bacteriology, 2-4pm Pathology
I've been continuing to update pictures and make a video montage of our Africa trip.  There are so many pictures!  I'm beginning to get sick of looking at them.

Thursday: 1-2pm Pathology, 2-3pm Bacteriology, 3-4pm Virology
To celebrate Ashley's birthday, a group of us went out to sushi! Yum!

Friday: 10-11pm Bacteriology, 11-12pm Pathology, 2-3pm - Essential Veterinary Skills
Unfortunately, I will be missing the veterinary skills class and Mr. Ross because I will be catching a flight to Chapel Hill to surprise Julia for her graduation!  Pretty sure she already knows I'm coming, but let's try to keep it a surprise anyway.

So this weekend, I will be with my family (including grandma and aunts) celebrating Julia's graduation.  I can't wait to tell everyone about my trip and so them all the pictures!

African Conservation Experience

Theme song for trip:  Time for Africa

Day 1-2: We had our flight to South Africa!  Our first stop was to Antigua where I got stopped by metal detector because of the wire in my bra.  Then to San Juan, Atlanta, and finally Johannesburg where there is a 6 hour time difference from the US.  The flight to Johannesburg was 16 hours where I watched two movies and slept most of the time.  We had 2 meals and a snack on the flight.  We took a shuttle to our hotel for the night, Aero Lodge and had dinner there, which is pictured below.  We all took showers that night as well, because we were afraid it would be the last night we would have a hot shower.

Day 3: We got up for breakfast at the hotel, then rode to the camp site in Alldays, which was about a 5 hour drive with a stop for lunch.  We took a sunset drive and saw some animals including a giraffe, then had dinner and played some cards.

 

 

Tent we stayed in at camp

Outside bathroom

 

Day 4:  In order to ease into Africa, we were taken to Mapungubwe National Park in the hopes of seeing some wild life and beautiful scenery.  We had lunch at an overlook of a river that splits South Africa from Botswana and Zimbabwe.  There was a dinner of spaghetti bolognese that night at camp and more card games.  As we were playing cards, we were told that we needed to repack for 3 days, but not take all of our stuff and we would be leaving at 4am that morning, which was about 7 hours away.  We then took a freezing shower that night, afraid that we wouldn't get another shower for a while.

Giant cricket that eats small birds

 

Day 5:  We were up at 4am and drove about 1.5 hours to to work on some Rhone, which are rare antelope.  They are worth 8,000US.  With the Rhone, we darted them, lifted them onto the truck, got DNA and hair samples, gave antibiotics, got measurements, reversed the drug, and then relocated them.  We ended up doing 13 out of the 37 that we needed to do.  We later darted a Sable that got out of the area it was suppose to be in.  We had dinner and spent the night at the vet's (Alex) hanger that night because we had another early night ahead of us.

The vet (Alex) darting a Rhone

Sable that got out

 

 

 

Getting blood on the Rhone

Day 6:  The next day we were up early again (5am) for a 3.5 hour drive away to Lydnburg near Ohnigstag for rhino dehorning.  It took us 5 hours to find the three of them on the 3,00 hectar (7,413 acres) of land.  When we darted them, we took blood,  gave them antibiotics, measured their horns, and then dehorned them.  The reason they dehorn them is that poaching is a huge problem in South Africa.  The Chinese use their horns for medicine, so they will hunt the rhinos and kill them for the horns.  So, the goal of the vets in the area is now to dehorn the rhino before they are killed.  Some farmers have even resorted to poisoning the horns.  We then had dinner at KFC and got back to hanger around 12am.

Car we rode around  in

Giving the rhino some injections

Day 7:  We had to be up at 6am to drive 2 hours to a farm near Thazimbage to take care of some Sable that got Amatraz toxicity (type of dewormer).  I rode with vet and at one point drove his car, so that he could write some emails.  He told me some of his craziest stories about animals that he had worked with in the past.  Once at the farm, we rode out to take a look at the sick Sable.  The Sable at this farm are worth 3 million US dollars! The rumen of the Sable's wasn't working, due to the dewormer, in order to get it started again, we killed two Blessbuck for their rumen contents.  Once we darted the two Sable, we gave them fluids, the rumen contents, antibiotics, and charcoal.  At the same farm, we checked on a buffalo bull who had an incision from earlier that Alex fixed.  We then drove 3 more hours to Baltimore to another farm to pregnancy check a Sable and performance check a Sable bull.  Afterwards, we drove back to Dave's (our driver) place at Galagos Wildlife Conservation farm for the night, since we didn't want to go back to camp yet.  We were learning so much from Alex that we wanted to stay with him to learn more.

 

Sifting through rumen contents

Getting fluids to Sable

Ten worms (our mascot/Alex's dog) with his GoPro

Our "homeless" van we lived out of

Pregnancy checking the Sable

Posing with Alex

Day 8: We went lion tracking with Dave.  We unfortunately weren't able to actually see the lion because it was heavily wooded, but the transmitter said we were within 6 feet of lion!  We were worried that she might have been hurt since she was in the same spot they found her 3 days earlier.  They didn't think the transmitter had come off because they heard cubs at the same time.  We also were able to smell a kill that she probably made.  We later found out she did move when they went to find her a few days after we were there.  We had lunch at the farm, then went back to camp for cheetah tracking.  Apparently luck was not with us this day, because the transmitter wasn't even picking up any cheetahs.  However, we instead found brown hyena, which apparently is extremely rare to get a picture of.  They are usually nocturnal and dart away before you can actually see them.  One of the girl's has a great video of the hyena, but it's too long to post on here.  We then had dinner at camp, which was probably the worst meal we had to that point.  We then went on a night drive, where all we really saw was an barn owl.  We played some cards before bed.

Dave looking for lions

Tibia we found on the ground

Dead hippo

Posing with Dave and the mongoose

Anthony checking for cheetah

Brown hyena

Gross meal of sweet potatos, pop, and frozen meat

Us not happy about doing the dishes in the dark at camp

Day 9: Today was considered our day off, which we really didn't want and weren't happy about.  We were so rushed and did so much in the previous days, that we wanted to keep going.  We were able to sleep in today, but since we didn't have much to do we ended up sunbathing, taking the "guard" dog for a walk, and doing laundry until we ran out of water.  Caron, the next vet we worked with took us with her to suture up the farm manager's dog.  We had a campfire that night complete with s'mores.

Yellow billed horn bill

Doing laundry

Suturing up Boots, the manager's dog

 

Day 10: We were up at "early" (8am) in order to drive to spay the Anatolian sheep dogs.  These dogs are placed in with goats when they are very young in order to protect the herd.  They do not know that they are dogs.  At that farm, we neutered one of the family dogs, and then spayed one of the sheep dogs.  We drove down to another farm and spayed the other sheep dog.  Caron isn't really a surgeon, so it took her almost two hours to do each of the spays.  The owner of the farm, then fed us a dinner of Eland and veggie, with lots of beer that night.

Spaying the dog

Anatolian sheep dog puppy

Eland dinner

 Posing with our spay patient as she wakes up

Day 11: We were up at 4am again, but this time, we took all of stuff because we weren't going to go back to camp anymore. (Yay!)  We took a long drive to a farm near Modimolle to relocate some Nyala.  These Nyala were extremely tame and we were able to get really close to them.  After we loaded a few into the truck, they were relocated to another farm and we went and grabbed some lunch at KFC.  Our next stop was Sondela, a rescue park, to ultrasound a carcala.  At this rescue park, we were able to play with lion cubs!  We also saw a cheetah, some older lions, giraffe, and a serval.  Caron made us spaghetti bolognese for dinner at her and Steve's place, where we thought we were going to stay for the night.  Alex later called them and asked if we wanted to fly with him the next to do Impala relocation.  Of course we said yes, so we packed up, then headed off to hanger.

 

Nyala

 

Dart guns

 

Cheetah

 

 

Playing with lion cubs

Day 12:  We were up early again in order to drive an hour away to the airport where Alex's plane was.  We flew to Kroonstad for 6 rhino dehornings.  There were some giant rhino on this farm!  The land at this farm was very flat with no tall trees, so it was a lot easier to find the rhino.  We were also working with three other vets, so after they darted the rhino, we would do the work up.  Alex was teaching the others how to do the dehorning, so that more people would know the proper way to do it.  At another area at this farm, we relocated about 7 Sable. We then briefly went over to Lechwe Lodge in order to get DNA samples on three different lions there.  We were only a fence line away from these adult lions! The farmer was very generous and fed us dinner and gave us a place to stay that night.

Freezing in the back of the truck

 

Putting tar on where horn use to be

 

Day 13: We drove back to the airport in order to fly back to van.  Alex was having fun with us on this flight by diving down making us think that he was going to land, and then flying straight back up again.  We had a buffet breakfast at the airport, but then had to be on our way to Nylstoorm for Impala relocation.  We stopped at Alex and ___ dart factory in Pretoria in order to get some more supplies while Alex flew in order to get a head start.  On the way, our "homeless" bus ended up getting a flat tire, but it was quickly changed and we were on our way again.  When we got to Nylstoorm, Alex and the rest of the farmers had been waiting for us, but there wasn't much we could do, because they couldn't get the Impala in the burma.  The burma is a type of chute with curtains in order to lead the Impala into the truck.  They weren't able to get the Impala into the burma because they didn't relaize there was a cattle fence in the way.  Even after taking down the fence, the Impala still knew the fence use to be there and didn't want to go in.  It got dark, so we had to call it a night.  We had dinner and slept at farmer's house in order to continue working the next morning.

Flat tire

Helicopter chasing Impala into burma

Trucks attached to burma in order to relocate Impala

Day 14: We woke in the hopes for a better day of Impala relocation.  This time we had two helicopters chasing the Impala into the burma and after some time, it ended up being successful, yet still not as successful as we needed.  We ended up catching 25 out of 150 that we needed.  With these Impala, we had a system for ear tags, ear notches (for DNA), injections, and reversals.  The rest of the group ended up moving the burma to a different location in the hopes of catching more Impala.  We were unable to help finish the rest of them because we still needed to drive back to hanger, so we could be ready for giraffe relocation in the morning.  We grabbed some beer on the road, and dinner of pizza, beer and shots before we called it a night.

Ear tags and injections ready

One of Alex's friends that we worked with

 

Day 15: Caron picked us up at the hanger to drive us to Windy Brow Game Reserve for the relocation of two giraffe (male and female).  After we darted the giraffe, we chased them for a bit until we were able to get ropes around them in order to better control them.  We blindfolded them and stuffed toilet in their ears in order to lesser the stimulation and therefore lessening their stress levels.  We then wake them completely up and walk them to the trailer.  The female was a lot easier than the male.  He took off and we ran after him for a good 30 minutes or so.   Of all the days I didn't wear pants, I just had to chase a giraffe through a bunch of bushes and tall grass.  My legs are so cut up now because of it.  He finally caught him, but then had to walk him a long way.  We then followed the trailer as it drove to the farm where they were going.  Once we got there, one of the farmers, who was the middle man between the buyer and the seller, tried to let both giraffe out at the same time, which was not a good idea.  The giraffe were already so stressed out that they were trying to escape the wrong way and trampled each other.  The female was finally able to get out and walk away, but the male still wasn't able to stand.  We had to pull him out of the trailer.  He tried standing on his own a few times, but then would just fall over.  It was getting close to the time we had to leave, so we weren't able to stay and see what happened with him.  None of us wanted to leave on that note, but we were driven to our pick up spot in order for the ACE representative to drive us to the airport.  We found out later, that the male sadly didn't make it.  At the airport we quickly "showered" with baby wipes since we were very dirty from the giraffe.  We then did a little souvenir shopping, got some dinner, and boarded our 16 hour flight to Atlanta. 

 

Putting blindfold on giraffe

Walking giraffe to trailer

Day 16: We arrived in Atlanta around 7am, went through customs, and grabbed some food, just in time to board our 3 hour flight to St. Thomas. During out 7 hour layover in St. Thomas, so we decided to get our nails done, since there was so much dirt and tar underneath them and then headed to the beach at a hotel for food and drinks.  We then had a 40 minute flight to St. Martin where we didn't get off the plane, but did pick up some more people, and the headed to St Kitts (landed around 9:30pm).  Our travel time was a total of 31 hours, plus the 6 hour time difference.  I unpacked and showered that night and ended up falling asleep posting some pictures on Facebook.  Well jet-lag got the best of me and I was wide awake around 3am, but I did force myself to go back to bed and got up again at 8am Sunday morning.

So overall it was an amazing trip and none of us wanted to leave.  I ended up losing my prescription glasses and sunglasses, but it was still the trip of a lifetime.

Check out my Facebook for even more pictures!

Words we learned:
Good morning - Goeie môre  "Good more"
Thank you very much - Baie dankie "Buy a donkey"
You're welcome - welkom "welcome"
Barbeque - Brie  "Bur-i"
Animal - dier "dear"
(And a few other inappropriate words ;) )