Week 3- Erika Kubik

It’s sad but true, this is my third and final blog posting which means my African experience is about to come to an end. Before I give my good byes, I shall first recap since my last blog posting.

Rested up from our weekend off at the resort, our “educational tour” took us back to where it began in Ishimara. This is where we put on more seminars and treated more individual animals. As this was our last week and we had gone over similar topics in previous seminars we as students had more participation where we got the chance to answer the questions posed. This was both a thrilling and slightly intimidating task as the farmers are very keen listeners and one has to speak in slow and simple terms so that things don’t get lost in translation (see attached photograph for Erin and Murray answering questions). I would like to think that we did an excellent job overall as many heads were nodded and only one or two people were caught falling asleep.

Our final day in Kenya was spend in Nairobi where we met up some of the veterinary students that we had spend time with over the past few weeks. It was at this time I learned a very valuable lesson, which I will pass along to you and that is to always wear a seat belt. On our way into the city we were stopped by the police who after looking into the vehicle noticed I was not wearing my seat belt and announced quite sternly that he wanted to arrest me. Fortunately he was joking, but did it ever give me a scare of the lifetime! Trust me, I learned my lesson and will never go without wearing a seat belt again.

I also learned that veterinary medicine truly is one medicine, which crosses both species borders (pneumonia in a goat as seen on a post mortem in Kenya looks very similar to pneumonia in a cow as seen on a post mortem in Canada) and language borders (as demonstrated by the translators). This rotation and experience has definitely been an eye-opener and one that will not be soon forgotten. I would like to thank Farmers Helping Farmers and all its partners who have allowed me this great opportunity. I have met many great people through this experience, both Canadian and Kenyan, and I am very fortunate to have been a part of their lives.