The Vet run

Unfortunately, the weekend I was suffering (or building my immunity as I now call it), the vet was out all weekend treating elephants. So I missed those but some newly qualified vets were going out to give one of the elephants, who had an absyss (sorry I know my spelling is all wrong) removed on it's right leg, a long lasting antibiotic.

I made contact with a senior lecturer at the university who invited me out to the treatment centre which is run by university vet students. I really loved it. They treat both wild and domestic animals so I got to see cats and dogs, as well as wild deer, porcupines, eagles, spotted cat (which is endangered) and plenty of monkeys, with one baby orphaned monkey who lives there. The vet students were very sweet and wanted to know where I was from and what I did.

We started our 3.5 hour drive so I stocked up on water and chocolate for everybody. The drive was frightening and lovely at the same time. The driver has some sort of death wish but the students sung nearly the entire journey. I couldn't understand a word but it was really beautiful.

We made it to the property and the vets injected ridiculous amounts of drugs into the elephant (probably enough to kill us). The mahout then rubbed traditional medicine to stop infection and that was it.

The family of one of the vets lived nearby so they were kind enough to make dinner for us. So I was spoiled yet again with a home cooked traditional meal. What was really special and made my night (or in fact my day, no week, no month!) was that some of the girls were looking at me so I knew they were talking about me. And I asked what they were saying one of them pointed to one of the other girls and said 'she thinks you are very beautiful'. Well, after feeling like death on the weekend, I was so pleased. Maybe I had lost a bit of weight...afterall, the waiter told me 'now you are thin, before you were fat'....Sri Lankans are not very subtle). But I told them thank you very much but you must be blind. Especially when the girls have such gorgeous hair, skin, eyes...everything!

Then we made the ride home with the death wish driver. Everyone thought it was hilarious when I asked if the driver had ever had an accident. I didn't think fearing for my life was particularly funny but I made it home safe.