Ride for World Health 2012

I found out recently that I was selected as a National Team Rider for a cross-country bicycle ride cum fundraiser, called the Ride for World Health. 

The Ride for World Health is a national, 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization which advocates for improvements in the quality and accessibility of national and global healthcare. Each year, the Ride for World Health culminates its fundraising efforts in a 3,700 mile cross-country bike ride from San Diego, CA to Washington, D.C., stopping at 50+ locations along the way and educate community members about the healthcare issues our world is facing today, including topics like HIV education, poverty and healthcare, and malaria prevention. Since the first cross-country trip in 2006, R4WH has raised nearly $500,000 for various global health charities. Last year's ride was a great success with $50,000 donated to World Bicycle Relief and HEAL Africa. The beneficiaries for Ride for World Health 2012 are Louie's Kid's, focused on childhood obesity, MANA, an organization that helps treat severely malnourished children in developing countries, and SOIL, a non-profit organization dedicated to protecting soil resources, empowering communities and transforming wastes into resources in Haiti.

The team this year will ride from San Diego, CA to Washington, D.C. in just under eight weeks, and deliver lectures and seminars to a wide variety of audiences from community centers and healthcare offices to preschools and teen groups.  It's an amazing opportunity for me to integrate my love of cycling with the things I've learned about the "One Medicine" concept in school, as well as get great experience teaching and spend two months making a small difference in the world.  The lecture series is organized by the riders, so each team member gets the chance to teach topics of his or her expertise or interest.  The majority of the team is in the human health field--the ride is organized by Ohio State medical students--so my input to the topic of world health from the veterinary side is fairly unique.  Hopefully we'll be able to tailor part of the lecture series to zoonotic disease, and the interactions between environmental change, agriculture, and these diseases, which is my particular area of interest in veterinary medicine. 

More information about the ride, our beneficiaries, and our route can be found on the website, here:
http://rideforworldhealth.org/
Or, on the facebook page for the ride, here: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Ride-for-World-Health/11862555943

My fundraising goal is $2700, and I'm hoping to hit the $1000 mark by February 1, 2012.  I truly appreciate any and all contributions, no matter how small!  To donate, follow the link below and click on the "donate to this rider" button:
http://rideforworldhealth.org/~r4wh/?q=theriders/bio/114

I'll be posting updates on my training and fundraising here and on my facebook event page, here:
http://www.facebook.com/events/194356770653699/

Western Veterinary Conference

I took a free block for the past two weeks so that I could go to the Western Veterinary Conference in Las Vegas.  I won a scholarship to go, so it wasn’t on a complete whim, but on the whole the experience felt a lot more like vacation than work.  

I arrived in Vegas at midnight on a Saturday after almost nine (yes, NINE) hours of sitting at the Ithaca airport waiting for the weather to clear so our little prop-plane connection flight to Philly could get in and out.  Needless to say, walking into The Excalibur (which looked a lot more like “THE EXCALIBUR!!!!) after traveling all day and just wanting to fall into bed was a little overwhelming…and I remembered why I drink when I’m in Vegas.

The majestic Excalibur hotel and casino

 I’d last been to Vegas in 2007 for Vegoose, a music festival on Halloween weekend, and I promised myself I wouldn’t come back for at least ten years.  So much for that. 

The Conference hosted two breakfasts for the scholarship winners (one student from each vet school in North America) at the Four Seasons hotel, which amounted to the two fanciest breakfasts I’ve eaten since starting vet school.  I think I singlehandedly took down an entire harvest of strawberries between those two mornings.  

Being Vegas, it was nearly impossible to do anything without walking through four casinos to get where you’re going, but I managed to navigate both the quickest indoor route (for those cold mornings) from Exalibur, through the Luxor, into Mandalay Bay and to the Mandalay Bay conference center, as well as the most outdoor, least casino-filled route out the service entrance to the Mandalay Bay Shark Reef and along the strip all the way to the back entrance outside Tower II of the Excalibur (for the beautiful sunny afternoons when I needed to waste time).

I did actually do a few useful, veterinary-related activities between catching Cirque du Soliel and wandering the strip watching the Bellagio fountain and the sad midwesterners camped out at the slots.  I went to an afternoon of lectures on anesthesia in exotics and zoo animals, learned about dog behavior from Sophia Yin, practiced reading thoracic radiographs, and was one of about twenty to make it through a whole afternoon on camelid medicine with Dr. Meredyth Jones (I was in good company—Mary Smith was another audience member, after finishing giving her own afternoon of small ruminant talks).

On the last day I ditched the conference, rented a car, and headed for the desert.  After an unsuccessful attempt to stop at In-N-Out for breakfast (who says you can’t eat hamburgers before 10 am), I drove out to the Hoover Dam and walked across the new Mike O’Callaghan – Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge that spans the Colorado just downstream of the dam.  Some might call the Hoover Dam a marvel of modern (or, 20^th century) engineering, but I just found it vaguely depressing, especially looking down at the tiny muddy stream—once the Colorado River—that flows out from the power plant downstream of the dam.  I decided not to take the dam tour, in favor of heading out to the north side of Lake Mead and hiking in the sun-baked Martian Mojave.  With the 127 Days trailer looping in my head, I hiked up an old wash into a small canyon, heading for hills on the distant horizon, and hoping that I’d get back to my car with both my arms still on. 

Hiking in a canyon near Lake Mead

Fortunately, I made it back to Ithaca with all limbs intact, and not having gambled away my next years tuition money.  The conference was great, and Cornell wrote up a little press release about it here: http://web.vet.cornell.edu/news/Lashnits.cfm.  Now if only I got to be on working vacation for the rest of the year….

The Ithaca Eating Project

I've been complaining lately that there aren't any good restaurants in Ithaca.  After driving around for a little while doing errands today, I realized that there are a lot of restaurants that I've never even heard of, much less been to, here in town.  I got on the interwebz when I got home, and discovered....161 restaurants currently in Ithaca, to be exact (and not counting McDonalds, Subway and the like).  I also came upon this website, www.eatingithaca.com, and they're in the midst of eating at every restaurant in Ithaca from A to Z.  They're also chatting with chefs and a little distracted by other foodie-related things, but I like the eating part, so I'm in.  After two and a half years here, I've eaten at 42 of the 161 restaurants here....and I have about a year to finish 119 more!  Wish me luck (and a gym membership)!

For a list of the restaurants, and where I've been, check out the google doc: The Ithaca Eating Project spreadsheet

And, since it's completely non-veterinary related, I'm taking the posting about this new project (undoubtedly more interesting than my day-to-day activities at the vet school), and moving them to a neighboring blog.  Go to The Ithaca Eating Project blog if you're interested....in seeing me stuff my face.

Llama Rescue Day

I took a day off from Imaging on Thursday to go with about 20 other Cornell vet students out to the Northeast Llama Rescue in Middleburgh, NY (in Schoharie county, west of the Albany area, so...far away) to help with some basic care of 100 llamas that had been rescued as part of an animal welfare seizure in Montana.  Over 600 llamas had been rescued from the Montana farm, and 100 of them were shipped out to Wes Laraway at Red Maple Farm, home of the Northeast Llama Rescue.  All 100 were males, and they were all supposed to be castrated (although we found 6 that weren't...more on that in a bit), so that should have made our jobs a little easier--no pregnancy checks, at least!

Sarrah, John, and me wrangling llamas

All the llamas were rounded up in the barn when we got there, and after a quick tour of the farm (which also houses rescued and rehabilitating wildlife as the NY Wildlife Rescue Center, and rescued farm animals as Barnyard Sancuary), we got down to business.  We teamed up and wrangled the llamas into pens, gave them somewhat cursory physical exams, and did routine vaccines, microchipping, and some fecal sampling.  The range that we saw in terms of their overall condition and well being was really broad--from some chubby, cheeky guys to sadly emaciated boys trailing matted fiber almost down to the ground.  There were also a few that turned out to not have been castrated, so we got to do standing castrations on those--one student per testicle!

LlamaFACE

Some of the llamas were super friendly and even liked having their faces scratched and petted, confirming my suspicions that llamas, while not as adorable as alpacas, have generally superior personalities.  And that we need one for our backyard.

The operation at Red Maple Farm was really interesting and the setting was beautiful...it was a little bit like the farm of folklore with one of every animal you can imagine--even peacocks and bobcats!  Wes has a website for all of his rescues, where you can take a look at some of his animals, including the rescued llamas and some pictures of our day on the farm: http://redmaplefarm.net/

Radiation Vacation??

After nearly two weeks of working with the radiologists on the imaging service, I honestly don't think the rotation deserves it's reputation--radiation vacation, radiholiday--whatever your preferred auspicious/inauspicious moniker. Sure, we only worked 8 am - 5 pm, which by the sound of it is by FAR fewer hours than some services, but it was more like a Make-Your-Own-Rotation than a holiday. Starting the day with an hour and a half of "Resident Rounds" every morning, we were usually free to watch and learn from the techs until we started "Student Rounds" in the afternoon. All the time in between is largely unsupervised, meaning that you can do anything from radiograph your dog, to watch a CT scan on an eagle, to check your email and study for boards. I suppose the amount of freedom that we're given on this rotation makes it prime for slacking, but it's also the only time that we're given explicit instruction in how to create a radiograph. Especially for someone like me who hasn't worked in private practice or had experience as a vet tech, the opportunity to learn from the techs here not only how to position an animal for different images, but also all the different settings, tips, and tricks that produce at least an average radiograph (let's not aim too high for the first try), is truly invaluable.

We do LOTS of rounds on Imaging. Resident rounds--appropriately titled--are when the residents present the images from the cases that were seen the previous day and overnight. They project the images--usually radiographs, but from time to time still images from an ultrasound, MRI, CT scan, or scintigraphy--on a big screen, and describe the findings and conclusions from those findings. Some common--and least arguement-inducing--reasons we'll use radiographs are to look for signs of metastasis in the lungs, or pre- and post-op images of orthopedic surgeries. We also have student rounds in the afternoons, in which we look at images from cases archived for teaching, and have to go through what we see and what we think that means. While we have instruction during Block 5 on interpreting radiographs, having rounds like this every day helps cement in the things we learned then, but also helps me at least see things that I hadn't seen before. I had a pretty good idea of what radiologists mean when they say they see an airspace or airway pattern in the lungs, but now I've seen--and had to point out with a laser pointer--a bunch of different examples. And hey, practice makes perfect, right?

Imagine Imaging

I finished derm last week on a pretty calm note, moving away from allergies and atopy into the realm of ear infections (of course, brought on by allergies or atopy...) and autoimmune disorders like pemphigus. I spent most of one day trying to figure out the difference between "puppy strangles," a derm problem in dogs, and regular-type "strangles," which is an infection seen in the lymph nodes of young horses. Of course once I finally got around to figuring out puppy strangles, and that we don't really know what causes it but that it's definitely not the same infection as in horses, I discovered that the dog I was working with didn't actually even have puppy strangles. Nice. But I guess that's the educational part of being on clinics...now that I've spent all this time trying to diagnose puppy strangles, at least I should be able to recognize it if (/when?) I see it.

On Monday I started my second rotation, Imaging. This means mostly radiology (taking x-rays), but with a little bit of ultrasound, MRI, and CT thrown in for good measure. I was excited to see the differences between rotations, and how each service does things a bit differently (at least, that's what I assumed...). Again, there were 5 students on the rotation, though this time it was all third years, so I was hoping that there was someone who knew how to use UVIS (our confusing and notoriously bug-ridden computerized medical records system). We got a lot of instruction and practice interpreting radiographs (aka "x-rays," but if we call the actual images of bones and body parts that come up on film or the computer "x-rays" we get a lecture about how x-rays are actually the radiation that produces images, which are properly known as "radiographs." Phew.)--anyway, we got a lot of instruction in how to interpret these images during first and second year, but not a lot of info on how to actually produce the images. So, I was looking forward to two weeks of practicing taking radiographs of dogs and cats that came in for diagnostics.

Snowstorms and dandruff

This week started out auspiciously enough--with reports of feet of snow coming our way. And indeed, Tuesday morning I woke up to the prospect of digging my car out from under almost a foot of snow. We thought that our appointments might cancel for the day because of the inclement weather, but we only had one no-show. And a bunch of different consults from other services in the hospital.

We worked with Dr. Miller, one of the two Derm chiefs, last week, and this week we're working with Dr. Scott (the other chief) and Dr. Clark (the resident). It's interesting to see each doctor's approach to the same problems--allergies in dogs or ear infections--and also to how they communicate with their clients. I wonder what it's like for clients to have different students every time they come to Cornell, and then only see the doctor for a few minutes at a time sometimes.

I've started to get more comfortable with the computer system we use--UVIS--and all the paperwork and protocols we have to follow. I got to take my first ear swabs (exciting? no.) and make and stain slides, but other than that we don't do much in the way of "procedures" on derm. The doctors did a punch biopsy last week, and all the students (there are 5 of us on this rotation) got to help with the injections for an intradermal allergy test--there are 50 injections to give so I don't think anyone was super keen on doing all of them!

There's more snow forecasted for today, but right now it's looking clear and cold, with not a flake in the sky. Hopefully the weather holds for the rest of the week so that I can make the drive to Vermont to go skiing on Friday with no problems!

Week 1: Dermatology

I started my first week of clinics on Dermatology, which is known mostly for it's super relaxed hours--on the first day, I worked 12:30 to 3 pm. The rest of the week picked up a little bit, and I took my first case on Tuesday morning. Both of my cases this week were dogs that were itchy and red, and we tentatively diagnosed either food allergies or atopy (environmental allergies) for both of them. It was interesting to see the difference in the approach for clients who have different outlooks on their dogs' care, and for dogs at different stages in their lives.

The main challenge so far starting out has been figuring out logistical things, like where blood draw equipment is, how to request drugs in UVIS, and what my role is exactly during appointments and rounds. It's also a little intimidating talking to clients, who are relying on you for almost all the information they'll get.

In Ithaca news, it's been snowing just a little bit nearly every day since I got back, so I wake up to a nice dusting on my car each morning. At least it keeps the snow looking fresh and not dirty, which makes Ithaca a much more beautiful place.

Aaaand, I'm back!

At the request of my dad, I'm starting up the blog again! After finishing up coursework for my third year, and then taking a nice long vacation, I'm finally starting my clinical rotations. I started on clinics a few days ago, meaning I'm working in the vet hospital at Cornell seeing patients, and I'll be there (mostly) until I graduate in May, 2012.

I'll try to post every week or so, and for the sake of client-patient confidentiality I'll change names and pertinent details so no one can be identified...hopefully I can still give you an idea of what life is like as a vet student at Cornell!

Zanzibar to New York (Monday - Tuesday, August 10-11)

We had to wake up early to pack this morning, and start our multi-part journey back to the US. A small propeller plane took us from the Zanzibar Airport back to the Dar airport pretty quickly.

Outside the Zanzibar Airport

Once in Dar, we had lots of time to kill before our flight to Dubai, and we said goodbye to a lot of the Envirovets who weren't continuing on to Dubai with us.

Me and Helen in the Dar Airport, feeling homeless and sad, and working on our crafting skills so we can learn how to live on the streets

The five hour flight to Dubai wasn't too bad, but getting on the thirteen hour flight from there to New York at around 1 am was pretty tough. I slept for a little while, and killed time watching terrible movies (Twilight, He's Just Not That Into You, and Confessions of a Shopaholic) and knitting.

We finally made it to JFK in New York, and said our final goodbyes. My dad was waiting at the airport to pick me up, bringing my journey--and Envirovet 2009--to an end.

Me and Val, the true Father of Envirovet

Last Day on Zanzibar (Sunday, August 9)

Today we got up early for our morning of snorkeling on reefs in the Indian Ocean off of Changu Island, which is a tiny uninhabited island off the west coast of Zanzibar.

The type of boats we took to our snorkeling site - I was in the orange topped one in the water

We collected a motley assortment of masks and flippers from a snorkeling shop and loaded onto small motorboats in the port. After about an hour on the boat, we reached the coral reef off of Changu Island.

Zanzibar style sailboat we saw on the way to snorkeling

Changu Island, where we went snorkeling

We hopped right in the water--which was a bit chilly at first but not bad once you got used to it--and went off looking at the huge assortment of corals and other invertebrates, and tropical fish. After a few minutes in the water, I noticed I was feeling really itchy all over my body. I ignored it, but a few minutes later it was definitely getting worse. I took a break to clean the condensation off my mask, and when I looked back in the water through the now-clear plastic, all I saw all around me was swarms of tiny jellyfish. Everyone else was starting to notice them too now, and we all swam back to our boats and clambered back in to find a better, more jelly-free, spot to snorkel.

We motored around to the other side of the island, and got back in the water. There were still a few jellies in the water, but they were tolerable especially considering how beautiful the coral reefs were. I've never snorkeled at a reef before, and it was amazing. We saw a spiny poisonous lionfish, and lots of huge blue starfish, in addition to tons of colorful corals and tropical fish. Too soon, we loaded back on the boats for our ride back to Stonetown. Helen and I spent the trip lying out in the sun on the front of the boat, taking a rare opportunity to tan our stomachs!

In the afternoon we drove south along the west coast to Bweleo village to visit a women's cooperative that raised and sold pearls and pearl jewelry. They talked to us about the farming process and the business practices they've learned, and had samples of their jewelry for us to buy.

Leader of the women's pearl cooperative, showing off her jewelry

Boy diving into the water in Stonetown Port at sunset

Since it was our last night, we had a special fancy dinner on the beach, complete with a huge and delicious seafood meal, and even dessert!

Stephen, Helen, Vanessa, Mike and I at the last night dinner

Afterwards, we went to a discotheque on the island. Being a Sunday night, there weren't too many people there, but we had fun dancing and drinking Kunyagi and Bitter Lemon cocktails. Back at the hotel, we hung out for a little while before turning in, much later than we should have with our early wake up time for the next day.

Dancing at the disco

Zanzibar (Saturday, August 8)

This morning we drove out to Paje village on the east coast of Zanzibar to visit the seaweed farms that are run by the women of the village. The village has a few tourist hotels that are really nice and perfect for the tropical setting.

Paje by Night, one of the hotels and restaurants in Paje

The ocean was like nothing I'd ever seen before. The tidal flats extended as far as the eye could see, just a few inches of water over white sand, and boats tethered there looking like they'd never make it out to sea.

Me in the Indian Ocean

Flower, from IMS, introduced us to one of the women planting seaweed. About half way through Flower's talk, it started pouring and we all huddled up until the shower passed.

We were this far from shore and the water was still only a few inches deep

The local woman showed us her technique for tying the seaweed onto lines that she tethers between stakes in about a foot of water. In about three weeks, she'll come back and collect the mature seaweed and sell it to international companies that extract the carrageenan for use as a thickener in everything from toothpaste to ice cream to shoe polish to pharmaceuticals. They also collect some for making seaweed soap and other cosmetics that they sell locally in markets and at the Paje hotels. I bought some to bring back as souvenirs for my housemates. Tanzanians don't really eat the seaweed, but we suggested that they start serving it as salads in the Paje tourist restaurants, since it actually tastes pretty good.

Flower demonstrating seaweed tied on lines

We ate lunch in one of the hotel restaurants in Paje, and they served us a specially made seaweed salad from their seaweed farms. After lunch we got back in the vans and drove back towards the middle of the island to Jozani-Chwaka Bay National Park and Forest. Here we walked around through the tropical forest, mangrove forest, and through groups of habituated endemic Zanzibar Red Colobus monkeys.

Endemic Zanzibar Red Colobus monkeys, found only on Zanzibar

In the mangroves we actually got to walk off the raised platform and into the mangroves, over their raised roots and low-hanging branches.

Mangroves in Jozani-Chwaka National Park

Stephen, Mike, Helen, and I climbing on the mangroves

Back in Stonetown, we had dinner at Mercury's Restaurant, named for Freddie Mercury of Queen fame, who was actually born on Zanzibar.

Mercury's Restaurant, from the beach side

We went back to the Africa House after dinner to hang out and relax before bed.

Lounging at the Africa House hookah bar
(from L to R: Dee, Stephen, Fidy, Me, Mike, Reti, Vanessa, Boris, Jenny)

Zanzibar (Friday, August 7)

We had lectures at the Institute of Marine Sciences, part of University of Dar es Salaam, this morning, about the coastal ecosystems here in Stonetown, and the environmental problems they're facing. We did an exercise with Jonna to quickly develop project ideas tackling marine environmental issues, like the pumping of raw sewage directly into the ocean at the port in Stonetown. We also talked about the tragedy of the commons and the state of marine fisheries with John Erickson, Pat's husband and an environmental economist at UVM.

Old buildings along the road from IMS to our hotel

We got the afternoon off to explore Stonetown a bit more, which was really nice. Helen, Reti, Vannessa and I went off to the market in the Old Fort for jewelry, paintings, and scarves, and then wandered around the historic district, browsing the shops and bargaining for souvenirs.

Market inside the Old Fort

Kids diving off embankment into the water near the port

We met the group for dinner at Archipelago, where I got a delicious Zanzibar curried fish dish. A bunch of us were still up for hanging out after dinner, so we went to the Africa House Hotel, one of the few places that serves alcohol in mostly Muslim Stonetown. It was a beautiful old building--a remnant from colonial days no doubt--and had a hookah bar and great patio. We had a drink and lounged on the pillows, feeling very decadent after the surroundings we'd been in for the past couple weeks.

The Africa House hookah bar

Sokoine to Zanzibar (Thursday, August 6)

We packed up and left SUA first thing today, and drove to Dar. The trip was supposed to be about three hours, but with traffic ended up almost four, so we were a bit late getting to the Landmark Hotel for our lunch and lecture break. I had planned to meet up with my friend Cathy, who's here in Tanzania working on her Ph.D. on water issues in Saadani National Park, through the University of Rhode Island. She was really interested to meet Meing'Ataki, since Ruaha has been having similar water problems to Saadani, so she could compare the two. Although it was a hectic lunch, it was really nice to see her, and she met Meing'Ataki and Deanna and Liz, so I think it will be helpful for her research.

We left Dar in a hurry to get to the airport--or more realistically to sit in traffic on the road leading to the airport. But we made our flight on time, and the super short twenty minute plane flight made all the airport preparations--packing, weighing baggage, security, x-rays, the patting-down I received--seem somewhat pointless. Upon landing at the Zanzibar airport, we discovered that our luggage been loaded on to the plane in Dar, and then promptly removed from the plane, still in Dar, because the plane was overweight. So while we were in Zanzibar, our bags were still in Dar. Making the best of it, we loaded into buses to head to our hotel, happy that we had a little less to carry for the time being.

Our plane to Zanzibar

We're staying at the Abuso Inn in Stonetown for the four nights we're here--and sadly, the last four nights of Envirovet. The hotel is beautiful, and positively luxurious especially compared to the SUA dorms we came from. We have our own bathrooms with sit-down toilets, toilet paper, and showers with hot water, and the rooms are all really nice and historical, and look out over the Indian Ocean.

The inside of our room in the Abuso Inn

We had some down time before dinner, so a big group of us went out walking around Stonetown, exploring some markets, the Old Fort, and Forodhani Park on the water. The feel of Stonetown is really different from any of the places we've been in mainland Tanzania. Both the colonial and tourist influences are much stronger here. Most of the architecture in the historical district where we're staying is very reminiscent of European cities, and there are huge old buildings left from the days when Zanzibar was a slave trade island.

Nighttime food market in Forodhani Park

We met up again for dinner, and happily Liz and Deanna had figured out the luggage situation and our bags were all safe and sound in the hotel, with nothing even stolen from them. We had dinner at a Chinese restaurant, and got to bed early in comfy, clean, and cozy beds.

Sunset in Stonetown over the Indian Ocean

Sokoine, Day 2 (Wednesday, August 5)

Today we split the day in half, first talking about biomarkers and pollution in fish. We had a couple lectures, and then went outside to practice bleeding and taking post-mortem samples from catfish, and to look at a few different types of potentially toxic cyanobacteria.

View from where we were testing fish outside the vet school

Preparing to bleed a gigantic catfish

The second half of the day focused on the problem of Influenza in Tanzania. We had an Avian Flu lecture from one of the SUA faculty, and then a lecture on the H1N1 Swine Flu from a visiting professor from UC Davis. In the afternoon we had a lab, practicing chicken restraint and sample collection for AI testing. We each got our own chicken to handle and test, and it was really and the chickens were nice and calm and friendly.

African chicken restraint method: a towel

My test chicken

For dinner, we drove into Morogoro and went to Dragonaire's, a pizza restaurant. The food was delicious, and we hung out there after dinner at the bar, dancing and playing pool.

Group at Dragonaire's

Sokoine University of Agriculture Veterinary School (Tuesday, August 4)

We spent most of the day today in lectures from various SUA vet school faculty on everything ranging from Rift Valley Fever to molecular techniques to identify illegal bushmeat traders to small animal practice and animal welfare in Tanzania. We also took a tour of the vet school, and it certainly made me appreciate what we have at Cornell (and UCSF for that matter) all the more.

The lab mouse facility: no barriers, and the ventilation was an open window

The small animal clinic here is fairly new, since the idea of small animal medicine is a fairly new one in Tanzania, and they have one big exam room with two tables, plus a surgery room and radiology room that are shared for all the animals they see.

Hospital at SUA: This was the main exam room, for large and small animals

One thing we saw today that was really unique was the facility for "Hero Rat" training. In Tanzania, these giant Gambian Rats are trained to sniff tuberculosis from sputum samples from people in the hospitals in Dar. The rats are also used elsewhere in Africa to sniff explosives from old land mines in war zones, and are light enough that they don't set off the mines, so they can be safely located and removed.

View from the Hero Rat training facility on SUA's campus

Rat sniffing TB sputum samples

We got to hold the giant gambian rats!

Udzungwa Mountains (Monday, August 3)

We left Tan-Swiss bright and early (well, not bright, since when we left at 5:30 am it was definitely still dark out) to get on the road to Udzungwa Mountain National Park. We stopped at the park headquarters, where we saw yellow baboons, black and white colobus monkeys, and Iringa red colobus monkeys, which are endemic to the Udzungwa region. After a short introduction from the park ecologist, we went on a hike up to the top of Sanje Falls.

Trail sign for our hike to the top of the falls

Sanje Falls

It was a beautiful hike, stopping at different levels of the falls to see the pools and take pictures. On the way back down, we took a detour down to the very bottom of the falls, and we were able to swim in the icy pool at the bottom and dive off the rocks.

Me diving into the pool at the base of the falls

It was only probably 8 km or so round trip, but pretty steep in parts, with stairs and bridges built out of stick slats that really didn't look like they would hold some of the larger members of our group. It was much more what I expected from this trip, and I was again surprised by how little actual physical activity we've done since we've been here--especially since I can't exactly go for a run once the day is over in most of the places we've been staying, whether because of the danger from wildlife or humans.

Panorama view from the falls over the area around Udzungwa

Porter carrying camping supplies up to the campsite on the falls

After a late post-hike lunch, we got back in the coaster and drove on to Sokoine University of Agriculture (SUA), in Morogoro, where we're staying for the next three nights. The vet school at SUA is one of the critical partners with UC Davis for the HALI project and for Envirovet itself, so we're spending a couple days here to see the school and learn more about the veterinary program and some of the challenges of veterinary medicine in Tanzania.

Travel Day, Ruaha to Mikumi (Sunday, August 2)

Another elephant at Ruaha

After a quick breakfast at Ruaha, we got on the road for our long travel day back to Mikumi town. We planned to stop in Iringa for gas, then at Riverside campsite for lunch, before traveling on to Tan-Swiss for the night.

Giraffe skull in Ruaha

On our way out of Ruaha, though, our Hiace got a flat tire, and then only about twenty minutes after that the radiator overheated and blew. With these stops, it took a lot longer than expected to get to Iringa, and we switched out the Hiace and two of the Rovers that had been giving us trouble for one of the big coaster buses. With this switch we also lost Anton, the driver of the Hiace, who was the best driver, and saved me a seat in the Hiace on our long journey days. He's applying to work with Deanna and the HALI project, and we exchanged email addresses so we can keep in touch, and I have a great driver if (or when!) I make it back to Tanzania.

Our flat tire

We got to Tan-Swiss with no more trouble, and had an early night. The electricity, real beds, indoor plumbing, and water heaters at Tan-Swiss seem absolutely luxurious in comparison to Chogela and Ruaha, which had none of these things. I'm still not sure which I like better, but I think a good mix of the two makes me the happiest--and makes me realize all over again how lucky we are to take things like electricity and toilets for granted. Living for a week or so at a time with dirt floors and thatch roofs, peeing directly next to the tent in the middle of the night because walking alone to the squat toilet across the clearing is too dangerous, and showering only when you're too hot and dirty to notice the coldness of the water trickling from the hose above your head--all these things can be great and challenging and fun, for a short time. But we've definitely met a lot of people so far on this trip who live in this way every day, for their whole lives. Just experiencing that here has been really amazing, and totally unlike anything I can imagine in the US.