Seeing the work site and Mauritius Media

Mauritius   Monday, October 1, 2012 

Woke up to gazillions of birdies greeting the new day!  There are Minah birds, cardinals, English sparrows, masked weavers and many, many others!  They are a noisy bunch, but very beautiful to watch.

Studied my lines for a while (yes, Linda, I really am!!) as I sat out on the patio outside our room.  Had a great night of sleep.  No WiFi here at the house, but I am trying to get these blogs written and pictures downloaded so I can put the blog together once I get to internet access.  Dang, just got stung by a wasp/hornet!  That hurt!  The darn thing just paid the ultimate price… hope there are no buddies following along.  Hmmm don’t have any ointment… better go get some ice on it.

Sue arrived a bit after 8am, Wendy, the maid/cook, prepared a yummy breakfast of eggs and tomatoes and toast.  We also had a wonderful fruit salad with local grown fruit.  The bananas and pineapples are very small, but oh so sweet!  Wendy added chopped apple and oranges, superb!

 

We all piled into two vehicles and set off for the Mauritius PAWS facility to take a tour and meet the veterinary team. They have a nice facility, especially for a third world country! There are two vets working there on international contract: Jay, from India, and **** from Ireland. They have wonderful veterinary assistants, nice enclosures, and lots of very cute dogs and cats. The dogs all look similar and are called Mauritius Rockets (well, that is as close as I can get to the French word that they use for mongrel). They are all very cute and friendly. The facility has a large reception area, treatment and prep area, and a small surgical suite. There is no gas anesthesia, all of the animals are anesthetized with injectable anesthetics, similar to the World Vets protocol.

The veterinary team does many sterilizations and veterinary care for animals all over the island. They even have a nice mobile surgical clinic!

After the team introductions and meeting, the WV veterinarians were taken to the Ministry of Agriculture to get our paperwork finished for our temporary permits to do sterilization in this country. We met with three different officials, but got it all done! We will have the letter tomorrow.

 

Back to the house for a very quick clean up and off to a book signing reception! One of the PAWS supporters wrote a wonderful little children’s book about what happens to stray dogs. It is beautifully illustrated. There were lots of people there in support of PAWS and the work they do. Several speeches, including Karen, our WV trip leader. There was plenty of wine and hors doeuvres. Afterwards we went out to a local restaurant for dinner that was paid for by one of the couples! We had a very nice visit with them.

Tomorrow we have our first day of clinics! We are aiming for 100 sterilizations per day… I am sure we can do it if that many animals are brought in!

Time for another good night of sleep!

Captions for photos above:

1.  Masked weaver, one of the glorious birds that greets each new day!

2.  Blue getting a major puppy fix!

3.  Our World Vets team (except me, I am behind the camera) at the book alunching reception.

4.  Part of the front of the PAWS building.  The artist that painted it also illustrated the book.

5.  Stacy and Steve with the banners in front of the PAWS mobile clinic.

6.  Stacy and Stella, the author of the little book.