Bulawayo to Gweru

Wednesday

Its not a long drive from Bulawayo to Gweru, the location of our veterinary training course, but as we set off I am slightly nervous. Even a year ago, Foreign Office advice was to not travel in Zim but a year is a long time in this country. When i was here in January last year, the shops were empty, petrol stations dry and people seemed truly desparate. Zim had just printed 100 Billion Dollar notes but they would still only buy a couple of newspapers. Now the whole place looks and feels different.


The notorious Bulawayo potholes have been filled in (well the worst ones anyway..), people’s heads are up, there’s not even the ubiquitous security guard outside our hotel. Best of all, its chucking it down with rain, and that makes most people very very happy. So Karen and I, loaned the trusty DPS 4x4 point ourselves north and plough through a deluge up to Gweru. Here we meet up with two young and dynamic Zim vets, Lisa Marabini and Keith Dutlow of the AWARE Trust who are doing some amazing work not just ion our area of concerns but on a whole range of Zims wildlife. Keith and Lisa asked SPANA if we could run a equine veterinary training course for both Government vets and groups like the ZNSPCA (Zim Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals).

The two days course gets underway on Thursday with Karen covering everything from equine ageing techniques hoofcare. Many of the vets have had no other training since vet school, and they are especially keen on the practical sessions. In between Karen gets to check out an elephant with an abcess and we all have a little play with some very small lion cubs! Friday is a clinic on the outskirts oif Gweru where local donkey owners bring their animal in for treatment.

This is an initiative that SPANA funded with AWARE after we got reports about donks being attacked by smallholders with machetes and axes after straying into their crops. Its 9am and we are already seeing some nasty injuries – axe wounds, burns caused by what looks like hot ash or boiling water. And some really horrible abcesses – I have a fairly strong stomach but even the hardened vets were grimacing as one brave soul lanced a huge one – “Its like a volcano!” his colleagues cried “A volcanic eruption of pus!” I think I’ll stick to Public Relations and taking photos rather than have any aspirations to be a vet. A policeman appeared and demanded some money for no apparent reason but such things are just accepted as part of day to day life in Zimbabwe.

It began to rain but the vets ploughed on, now really getting into their work and slowly ticking off about 40 donkeys lined up for treatment. By early afternoon it was all over, and we said goodbye to new and old colleagues, who expressed real gratitude that SPANA had come out to do this course for them.

One vet coerced us to come and see one of the horses under his care which he was struggling to diagnose so we drove out of Gweru to a small farm. He though the thoroughbred mare might have a snake bite but Karen diagnosed a twisted hoof – with no x-ray it was going to be hard to be accurate but the owner was grateful we’d come out. We turn south and head for Bulawayo in the rain again.