Monday, August 4, 2008

We depart the hotel with the convoy and equipment, pick up the Ministry of Agriculture extension personnel and travel to a new site on the coast, south of Tanga toward Pangani. The site is off the road a short distance with one of the standard triangular concrete floor holding pens connected to a “crush” raceway which leads to a dip tank with a new green tin roof. This dip tank is full of dark liquid and we are told it has been “charged” with acaricide.

The cattle are already lined up so we begin work with our standard protocol of FMD vaccine (3 ml SQ), ivermectin at 200 mcg/kg (1 ml/50 kg or 110 pounds), and run through the dip tank. The sides of this facility are sturdy but the design is not conducive to the cattle moving from the triangular holding pen into the raceway/”crush.” The triangle is not round, there is no crowd gate, the sides are not solid, and the cattle probably have a memory of the dip tank. It all equals the same situation whereby the cattle are forced into the “crush” by stick wielding Tanzanians who flail away at them until they move, usually one a time into the crush for processing and dipping. All going according to plan.

These cattle are in pretty good shape although they are particularly “ticky,” with virtually all having large numbers of ticks on their bodies. By sitting down and letting one group walk by me, and pretty much over me for that matter, I am able to get some good photos of ticks on teats and other areas that I had not previously captured “on film” (digital film, that is). The group of cattle that I am taking images of is held near the entrance to the holding pen and I help keep them held close until for some reason the group of “cowboys” heads them back in the original direction from which they came. At the same time they shout back at our folks in Swahili and gesture angrily, none of which I understand other than to realize that they are P.O’d.

LTC Machera tells us that they arrived late and were trying to get into the holding pen with their group ahead of another group that had been before them. They left in a huff, and in a few minutes a few of them came back to continue the “discussion” with some of the Ministry folks. I am concerned that it might turn a little rough but eventually they leave and work continues.

By the end of the day we have worked about 800 cattle. CPT Coenen befriends a couple of dogs, one a tan colored male named “Simba” (Lion in Swahili) and the other a black and tan female whose name sounds like “Baretto” or something like that, but we are unsure if it has a meaning. They are friendly and enjoy getting scratched. “Baretto” gets 2 ml of albendazole as a door prize for showing up, just in case she’s wormy. Both are tossed in the dip tank by the Tanzanians who claim them. They both swim to safety but Simba seems to have his feelings or pride a little wounded and diverts around the back of the dip tank instead of coming back to the side where we are standing. Baretto is none the worse for the wear and shakes it off as an unchanged, but now “dipped” dog. We depart and head back to Tanga.