Dr. Rachael, Cow Whisperer

So... It's close to dusk at the compound one night about a month ago, and I'm taking a stroll around the grounds seeing who's where doing what. Specifically, I was coming to check on one of the cows. The day before, we (others, not me) noticed that she was bloated, with a painful amount of air trapped in one of her stomachs, and subsequently tried a variety of ways to release some of that air. The first involved force-feeding soapy water, with the hope of dissolving whatever was trapping the gas. As an emergency measure, we (again, others) tried what I can only describe as driving a rod through the side of the cow in an attempt to puncture the stomach. Interestingly enough to me, this plan failed because the stake coud not puncture the tough hide.

It's a nice Friday evening, dusk settling in, and around back of the main house, there's a crowd around our poor, sick Bessy (name changed to protect the bovine). As I arrived, the Bishop warned "Eh, watch your step! This is what was removed from the stomach, 5 kilos of caveras (plastic bags)." After I stepped gingerly aside, I saw Rachael's blood-soaked hands reaching into the cow's left side, scissors and needle in hand, and a ten-inch hole out of which came those five kilos of caveras. (This is an interesting problem arising from a collision of old world and new. Caveras, while partially-banned by the government, are now used so profusely, they cover the ground in many places. And a problem absent in the western world - plastic ingestion by livestock - has emerged here.)

I was first just amazed at how calm the cow seemed to be, tied by a short leash to a power pole and with someone's hand in her side. Ample squirts of lidocaine are sufficient to do the trick here. Unfortunately, the needle available was not sufficient, being unable to pierce the tough rawhide (yee-haw), and Rachael caught a boda boda to town for something stronger. When she returned, having cleared the affected stomach of caveras and closed the succeeding layers of tissue, she began stitching the leather.

It was tough going, with each stitch requiring both hands and a lot of leverage, and she often had to rest as her hands tired. But she did it...well, almost. If you look below, you may notice the very last (bottom) stitch as the handiwork of yours truly. Now, I know what you're thinking, "How does he manage it all? Mission work, guitar playing, bovine surgery." I owe some of it to my extensive training, and my Leatherwork merit badge.