Syria has always seemed a little strange – in some ways one of the toughest police states in the world – whilst in others, welcoming and hospitable and open to all kinds of innovative suggestions. Far more get ahead in fact than their neighbours and rivals in Jordan – at least as far as SPANA’s education work is concerned.
For instance we made some really nice models of horses’ legs showing their evolution from the five-toed ancestor running around in the primeval forests through to the modern single toed ‘hoof’ of the modern horse.
“Can’t possibly show those”, said the Jordanians, “that’s evolution”.
“But, you’ve got it in your school text-books – we’ve seen it!”
“Ah, yes – but we’re now re-writing them!”
There’s progress.
No such problems in Syria – “That’s a good idea”, they said “can we have some more ideas like that please?”
So, we’re scrabbling around trying to put together the finance for a mobile education centre (a converted ex-Military coach in fact – the only left-hand drive vehicles available).
The Syrians will love it – as it travels around the country from village to village – giving children (and no doubt lots of adults) an exciting new look at the natural world about them – and drilling into them a bit of empathy for animals and respect for the environment around them.
A nice little challenge for us too – thinking up and constructing, interesting interactive displays and models to fill the bus, as well as the Arabic text panels.
Should keep us out of mischief for a bit this winter – but we’ve still got to find just a teeny-weeny bit more funding before we can get really cracking.
I suppose it goes without saying that anyone working for SPANA would have a deep love of horses – my first was a little wooden cart-horse model called Nancy that I hauled around everywhere with me before I even went to school.
But I must also confess to deep reservations about their design.
I mean, look at those stupid, spindly things they’re supposed to run around on. All those nerves and veins and arteries and tendons etc stuffed into a silly little tube, called a ‘leg’ that’s completely unprotected and meant to support all that weight above it charging around and leaping over fences and walls and other nightmare hazards. Just plain daft. Any first year architectural student putting forward a design like that would be thrown off their course.
And then look at the digestion of the silly things. What a disaster! If you give ‘em decent food they get laminitis or colic, if you don’t they lose weight and energy, and still get colic.
Colic ! What a wondrous way to confound a poor owner and generally complicate life.
And in Syria they can get it in spades from all sorts of reasons – dry food (chopped straw or ‘tibben’ is the usual winter feed) bunging up the system is perhaps the most common. Worms and parasites can do it too – and eating the plastic bags that litter the countryside is a growing problem. They can get a twisted gut – sometimes from just rolling over – and that’s normally fatal – and I bet I’ve missed out lots of other reasons.
But the colics we’ve seen this week in the villages of northern Syria – seem about the cruellest. After months of summer drought and starvation rations, along comes a bit of rain, and bingo! - the grass starts growing. Not surprisingly, thin, hungry horses think that Christmas has come early and stuff down as much of the lush new growth as they can.
Big mistake. We had three that had blown up and died last week (I think it puts too much pressure on organs like the heart and kidneys and things), and another poor old mare that I think we just about saved. But as I’m sure you know, the pain from colic makes them thrash around on the ground, ripping the skin off their knees, hips, skull and any other protruding body part. Which of course gets filthy and goes septic – turning into abscesses like this poor old girl (I’ve spared you the close-up photos) – so she’s had to endure the pain of all that on top of the colic.
It’s a tough world for a horse in Syria – in fact it is in most of our countries.
So, I say again, what a dopey design for an animal anyway.
Monday, 16 November 2009
Syria
Wednesday, 4 November 2009
With Jeremy Hulme, SPANA’s CEO, off visiting our projects in Tunisia, this blog is from Simon Pope who oversees SPANA’s Communications Department.
Like many people of my generation, Ethiopia came into my consciousness about 25 years ago with the BBC reports about the drought and then the subsequent Band Aid / Live Aid initiative overseen by Bob Geldof. Now, a quarter of a century later, and with new BBC reports about droughts in the region , many commentators were asking what lasting impact all that awareness-raising and money had made on this country. On what was to be a short trip to this country of contradictions, I got a small chance to see for myself.
Ethiopia is vast. Its also densely populated, multi-cultural (predominantly Christian but with more-than-tolerated Muslim communities), green (in parts), desert (in others) friendly, welcoming and politically stable. Addis Ababa (the capital) has undoubtedly the worst air pollution I’ve ever experienced (possibly due to its lofty altitude) and some of the most inane driving as well – It’s as if everyone has been to some sort of Jedi Driving School (“Don’t look. Close your eyes. Drive by your instincts.”) where only telepathy means that an accident doesn’t occur every 30 seconds – which it probably does anyway.
SPANA’s work here is unfussy, uncomplicated and yet badly needed. Although motorised tuk-tuks are making inroads after being imported from Asia, the favoured method of transport is a horse drawn taxi - that is assuming you can’t afford a Toyota Hi-Lux and seemingly the only ones who drive those, (incredibly badly I might add, and as if they have some God-given right to do so) are UN workers.
So I join the SPANA mobile clinic team for a day, at one of its regular visit to the fairly rural town of Modjo, about 100km south of Addis Ababa. We set up the clinic in a grassy compound and the horses which just ten minutes before had been hooked up to their taxi carts, come filing in.
Despite the shade of the trees its sweltering, but the team plough on. I vaguely wonder if they might stop for a coffee break but they all know that for every minute the owners are here they are losing business, and that means losing money. So they simply don’t stop. Not even for five minutes. Everyone helps each other out. Abebow is handing Gebre fat, squirming ticks he’s removed from a horses rectum – Gebre is holding them in the palm of his hand, trapped with his other forefinger to stop them leaping to freedom before he goes away and squishes them. Kefyalew has set up an improvised practical lecture corner for a group of local vet students. Even Alex, SPANA’s driver is fetching and carrying fresh supplies of iodine and cotton wool.
There’s a second wave of arrivals – names are added to the list to ensure no-one jumps the queue. Kefyalew begins treating an injury caused by poor shoeing – these are nearly always pieces of rubber cut from old car tyres and roughly nailed on to the hoof. The village farriers are poorly trained and their work is shoddy. We see a number of injuries caused when the exiting nail ends aren’t properly turned down, so that they lacerate the opposite fetlock as the horse trots. More common is when the nail doesn’t come out where it should at all and punctures the soft part of the hoof. Its inevitably painful for the horse and invariably results in an infection, which is what’s happened here.
Kebedi is one of SPANA’s most junior staff, but he’s a wizard when it comes to hooves – a few soothing words in the ear of a rather skittish horse, a stroke of the neck and then in one smooth movement he strokes and lifts its leg.
He carefully examines the hoof deftly cleaning and paring it to find the source of infection. He files it flat , and then scans the surface again but its still eluding him. But he’s not giving up. Bent double, a heavy file in one hand and a sharp knife in the other and somehow still holding the hoof between his knees. He’s absolutely determined to help this horse out.
And then after 20 minutes of scraping, filing, squeezing, clipping, surrounded by flies, and with sweat running down his face and a bruise of his arm courtesy of a swift sly kick from the next horse in line, he finds the nail hole. He asks for me to get Iodine and I watch as he flushes out the painful looking abscess – a needleless syringe shoots Iodine into the hoof and it shoots out again just as quickly from the drain hole. He keeps at this until he’s satisfied that its thoroughly flushed out. Only then is the wound expertly dressed, and after a shot of antibiotics its bandaged hoof hasn’t even touched the ground before he’s calling for the next patient. Job done. But his face shows real pride for that one moment as the horse gingerly steps away, and then he’s back to work again, bent double and already stripping the rubber shoe off the next one.
Its gone one o'clock when the last of the horses leaves the compound. A check on the stats shows that in 4 hours, 85 horses were assessed, treated and sent home in a better shape than when they arrived.
(PS - Another Blog from Ethiopia to follow later this week,...)
Monday, 2 November 2009
The centre of Tunisia is a whole world away from the Tunisia where tourists flock to the beaches and posh hotels.
Poor soils, dry and barren, the people struggle to make a meagre living off the land. It’s got very little going for it.
The north has more rain, better soil, forests with wood and game – the south, albeit desert, has oases packed with date palms (yielding over £200 per tree in a good year), as well as flocks of tourists streaming forth for their one-day ‘desert experience’ dressed up as Lawrence of Arabia, but with baseball cap and trainers.
But the middle? Nothing.
So, ideal territory for SPANA.
We were at the souk in Sbeitla on Wednesday – with the team from Kasserine. Still hundreds of animals, bringing people and their goods to and from the market. We treat forty-nine cases in the morning – from the usual sores and wounds, to one with a touch of pneumonia, and several ‘old soldiers’ needing their teeth rasped. Sadly, there is no injection you can give to cure old age. (I know that only too well, after I’ve spent a few hours holding up legs for the farrier).
But the biggest problem for a lot of these animals is not old age – but youth.
That is to say, not their own youth, but the youth of the stockmen put in charge of them. And to call them stockmen, is to insult that noble calling.
I stood and watched, all morning, as sad, ill-educated, brutal and frustrated teenage boys took out all their bitterness on the poor wretched donkeys and mules in their charge.
Whipping them with steel reinforcing rods, or rubber tubing – it was a great pleasure to stand at the exit from the souk with the SPANA team and confiscate all the whips, one by one.
Was I being overly-sentimental if I thought I saw a wry smile on the faces of their donkeys and mules as they trotted past?
Thursday, 15 October 2009
LATEST BULLETIN ON TOMMY ,direct from the'horses mouth' in Marrakech 10.30 am ,15th Oct
Hurrah, hurrah, he's doing well.
The temperature/pneumonia worry is always there, but touch wood, he's fine at the moment. Still being fed by nasal-gastric tube, every two hours, day and night, but he's getting stronger every day. They hope that soon he will develop a proper sucking reflex, but of course nobody knows just how premature he might be. Sucking is much better for the digestion than a stomach tube - all the wee scrap's 'systems' will work better.
But he is getting stronger every day. I asked if he was standing properly yet, and Dr. Boubker replied, "Standing? He's running about ! We're having a problem keeping him in his hospital quarters". He promised some more photos later today
Good news then, but please remember everybody, he's still very much 'at risk' - he's very fragile.
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Tuesday, 13 October 2009
STOP PRESS : MEDICAL BULLETIN ON TOMMY (SPANA clinic, Marrakech).
Well, the good news is he's still going, the bad news - it's a bit of struggle.
No surprises there I suppose - the poor wee scrap's got a lot of challenges to face.
Main problem, he's probably quite premature - though hard to be accurate as to just how much. But it translates into he's got no sucking reflex. So, to feed him we've had to do it by naso-gastric tube, every two hours.
Now, you can imagine, feeding the tube across his trachea as often as that, it would be very, very easy to get a drop of fluid down into his lungs - a potential disaster. Pneumonia is the last thing he needs, and last night he had quite a temperature. So, he's on antibiotics anyway, and they decided to give the feeding a break (we can always give hime a glucose drip so he doesn't get dehydrated), and this morning his temerature was back to normal again.
But you can see, his grip on life is still pretty fragile, though I've always felt he was a fighter. And that's worth a lot. Without that spark, it's very hard work. And he's up and walking around - good for the systems, breathing, digestion etc.
Fingers crossed and hope for the best.
Watch this space.
