Saturday morning

Good morning!

I'm sitting in bed with a cup of hot tea.  The sun peaking in through my window and attempting to grab my feet.  I've been up for a good hour and haven't managed to do much at all.  I'd say it's a good morning!  My plans today are to run, shower, and meet people at 11:30 to go to a music festival.  It is an all day event hosting local artist.  I'm pretty excited.

This week flew by for me!  Thursday I attended classes and spent time completing my first lab report.  It was on plants of the savanna and their adaptations to the climate.  I had to do a bit of reading because my plant knowledge is pretty limited. I successfully printed my lab report by putting money on my account and following the instructions at the library. Check! I also discovered that to check out books at the library you must register with he library.  I had to take them my class schedule and fill out paperwork.   I checked out a book called "The No. 1 ladies' Detective Agency."  It is based in Gaborone.  It's pretty popular and one of my professors at Clemson first told me about it.  I'm only sixty pages in but already it's pretty descriptive of Botswana.  Yall may enjoy reading it!  I'll let you know.

Yesterday, after class and lab I headed to main mall.  There I got a copy of my passport notarized and passport photos in order to finish my residency waiver.  (This allows me to stay in the country over 90 days but under six months.)  My friend and I were walking down main mall checking out all the little stalls looking for "the guy who does passport photos."  We finally found him and he sat us down by a brick building, put a sheet behind us, and snapped our picture.  I got four passport photos for 35 pula ($5).  When we finished that mission, I headed into Spar and bought a juice and pear.  The pear was delicious but the juice was soo sweet.  I've found most juices here are too sweet to drink.

I arrived at the vet clinic at 1pm and they told me they were on lunch until three.  (They are open from 8am to 6:30 but usually take lunch between 12ish-3.)  I sat in the back and read Ireland veterinary magazines. I felt like a nerd, but I really enjoyed them!  At three the lady vet started working on a dog.  The dog was extremely anemic. It had a few external tumors and they were thinking maybe it had internal tumors which were causing some bleeding.  They wanted to open her up and see what the issue was.  They first decided to give it a blood transfusion, using the blood of her son.  They don't have the tools to check if the blood types matched.  Instead, she mixed the two bloods together and then looked to see if there was a lot of coagulation, indicating a reaction.  The bloods didn't seem to react poorly so she went ahead with transfusion hoping for the best.  The dog was so anemic and its blood pressure was so low, it was very difficult to find a vein.  Finally we had her hooked up to the blood and I sat with her while she got the transfusion. I was also able to assist with an euthanasia (the dog had a bone stuck in it's throat and it tore it's trachea), a puppy checkup, and yearly vaccinations for two dogs.   As we were wrapping up to leave an emergency case came in.  A little Maltese had apparently received too much flea and tick medication and was showing signs of poisoning.   She was given fluids, a bit of activated charcoal, and some other injection.  I'm so lucky to have the opportunity to help out there!   The people are so nice.  Although they do talk in Setswana most of the time, they take the time to explain to Norah and I whats going on. There are three vets there and they all studied at different places.   It will be interesting to see what cases come in and how each is treated.

I arrive back on campus around 8:30, grabbed some beans and coleslaw at the dining hall and then called it a night.  I know it isn't too exciting for a Friday night but I was exhausted! 

Well folks, I guess I better get out of bed and start my day.

Enjoy your weekend! 
Peace and Love