Long Day

My goal for today was to vaccinate the goats that we have paid for and will hopefully give to families this week. Something that should have taken 2 hours but, not surprisingly, took the entire day.

10:00 am. Went to pick up the vet from the clinic.

10:10 - vet says 'Oh, I forgot. I meant to bring a technician with me. I told him we would be going at 10. We will need to go back to get him.' How do you forget a person? Especially when you had talked with him that morning about coming, I don't know.

10:20 - Go back, get the guy and head out to the lab for animal research where they produce the vaccines. There is only one place in this country where they produce animal vaccines...they're not exactly a 'high demand' kind of thing...come to think of it, neither are human vaccines.

10:30 - vet asks 'did you bring a letter requesting the vaccines from the lab?' Why would we need that and how would we know to bring it? Again, I don't know.

10:45 - go to office and put something on letterhead and stamp it.

11:05 - stop on the side of the road for ice...?

11:30 - Arrive at the lab. Talk with the director who had previously agreed to donate all of the vaccines but has since changed his mind.

11:45 - Director decides to donate again but, sadly, they only have 3 of the 5 we need...bummer. One they say we 'don't need' and the last doesn't actually exist.

12:00 - Are escorted to the 4th floor where they are researching the vaccine that doesn't exist so they could solicit our help in their research in discovering if the goats here are carrying the goat strain or the cow strain of the disease and if a vaccine is even needed. After assuring them 12 times that we are NOT vets and don't actually know what we're doing we get out of research.

12:30 - Had originally hoped to be finished for the day by now but we're just leaving the lab.

12:45 - stop to pick up breakfast sandwiches...it's the day before Ramadan starts (maybe) so our local friends have to make the most of their opportunities to eat.

1:30 - Arrive at the farm

1:40 - Watch some people put a sheep in the trunk of their car.

2:00 - Have chased goats around a pen and are all sunburned and soaked in sweat. Have successfully vaccinated, dewormed, and ear tagged 9 but need more syringes for testing them for the disease that we can't vaccinate them for. Send someone to the local pharmacy for more syringes.

2:30 - finish tests, choose 6 more goats (That makes 15, woohoo!!! Only 5 more to go!) and head for home

2:45 - Hit stand still traffic about a mile from the bridge. They made the bridge one way to 'help' with traffic.

2:50 - put in the 'American Cowboy Music'...the only cassette tape we happen to have is George Strait from 1980-something. The great thing about George Strait is that there are very few of his songs that you don't know the words to or at least the tune.

3:15 - Amuse our local friends with they way we all know the words and sing along out loud, even in the car and with our curiosity of how they do taxes in this country because you just gotta make conversation.

3:45 - Get across the bridge

4:15 - drop our friends back at the clinic and head for home.

I know this is fairly boring post, but it's a good example of how the days just fly by and yet very little gets accomplished. I used to be a list maker/goal setter and usually had a list of things to accomplish each day. I learned real quick that I couldn't do that here because I never got to cross anything off the list and that's the whole reason for making a list, right? So now I don't make lists or really set goals or, if I do, they're very small and they still, for the most part, don't get done.