Continued Riots on Campus

Today is day three of living with friends off campus while students run amok on campus. Although the university insists each morning that all is under control and that staff should continue with normal activities, we have not opened the clinic due to fears for client and staff safety. Over the past two days many lecturers have been chased out of the lecture halls with fire extinguishers, professors have been assaulted, and one Dr who works at the clinic was attacked by students throwing rocks. How can the university continue to ask staff to come to work when they have clearly been unable to control the situation adequately? We will see what today brings.

Thankfully, our campus is not the one making headlines this time around. There has been no major damage here recently. On many other universities however, students continue to burn buses, buildings, residences, etc. In Johannesburg, one protest spilled out into the city and several shops were looted and destroyed. There is even talk of the government calling for a state of emergency.

Why are the students protesting? They have decided that it is time for the government to make university free for all students. Now, just like a toddler who isn't getting what he wants, they are throwing a temper tantrum, using violence to attempt to force their own way no matter the consequences to the rest of the country.

Oct Prayer Letter - Short Term Team

Time is flying on and winter has turned to summer without the benefit of spring.  Just a week after the short-term mission (STM) team left, the temperatures entered the 80 during the day.  I’ve put away all my winter clothes and taken the duvet off the bed.  Thankfully, here have still been a few cool nights, so I’ve been enjoying the last few cups of tea for the year.

All in all the STM team went well and we accomplished quite a lot during their stay.  The team was made up of two veterinarians, Cathy and Bonnie, and a vet student, Jen.  Mon-Wed they came to the clinic with me and enjoyed getting to know the students.  One of those clinic days, we took the students to lunch at the cafeteria on campus and were able to experience the chaos of ordering a meal when everyone just clusters around the window and tries to get their order heard next.  The options included stew with pap (kind of like stiff grits or polenta), chicken with pap, fries, and premade sandwiches.

Two evenings during the STM we put on supplementary trainings for the final year students.  It was a lot of fun getting them up and moving pretending to be hearts pumping! Topics included cardiology, fecal analysis, one-health, and cancer.  The cancer talk also gave Bonnie a great opportunity to share her testimony through her own cancer story.

We also participated in a spay/neuter day here in Mafikeng along with the government veterinary services.  I had decided to organize one during the STM trip and got in touch with the government vets to see if we could use one of their mobile animal clinics.  They loved the idea and took over organizing it and we ended up having 6 vets perform over 75 sterilizations in one day.  Although the American vets couldn’t do the surgeries (not licensed here), they helped tremendously in monitoring the animals during and after surgery, keeping instruments clean and organized, running errands, etc.

It was a new experience for most of us Americans as the surgeries were performed under injectable anesthesia only.  The animals were induced with ketamine and Domitor and topped up with thiopental if needed.  We had brought Propofol along so our team from NWU used it instead of thiopental.  Most of the animals had no anesthesia monitoring, but our team had enough people to do some monitoring during surgery. I’m so glad that we don’t have to do surgery this way at the clinic.  The experience made me incredible grateful for our anesthesia machine and monitoring equipment.

On another morning, we joined the Mafikeng SPCA for a rabies vaccine outreach in a local village and vaccinated 90 dogs in 3 hours!  The dogs were also dipped for ticks before they went home.  It still amazes me how the majority of people don’t leash their dogs.  Dogs of every description were just running around us loose, while owners tried to catch them so we could vaccinate.  Thankfully, only a few fights occurred.

The STM team also participated in our weekly student Bible studies and witnessing training on campus and the AWANA program run at my church.

Finally, they had two days on safari and managed to see all the big five (lion, leopard, cape buffalo, elephant, and rhino) plus wild dogs, hyena, zebra, giraffe, and lots of antelope species.  We enjoyed fabulous sunset stops during the afternoon game drives with snacks and drinks, hot chocolate stops during the morning game drives, and amazing meals at the lodge.

On a completely different note, now that I have been on the field for almost a year and a half, my prayer letters will start coming every other month rather than monthly.  The newness is wearing off and life here has settled into routine.  My next prayer letter will come to you in December.  To keep up with events this side as they happen, be sure to “like” my Facebook page.  The page also includes quite a few more photos from the STM team’s visit.

I will be flying back to the US for most of December and would love to get together with as many of my supporters as possible.   Please let me know if you would like to meet for coffee or a meal in Western WA.