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November 03, 2005
Volunteers
The first few days of volunteer work with Animal Care Payam was a wee bit disheveled. Without going into naming names and other details, the initial group of volunteers revolted against Maggi, the founder of the charity. Spoiled little shits. Anyway, Maggi recruited this Belgian guy Paul who is way too full of energy. He in turn rounds up from the streets of Ranong a group of recruits to help fill the newly created resource gap. Paul also worked day and night until the project was complete—making cages, rounding up animals, propping up Maggi’s soul and caring for post operative dogs and cats through the night in a snake, rat, spider, scorpion and mozzie infested shack. Good on him.
For some reason or another, all the new recruits and I ended up staying at the Bamboo Bungalows together without any of the other volunteers. This includes the married ‘professional travelers’ Mars (Kiwi) & Jessica (Swede), two absolutely hilarious English ladies named Boo and Rachel finishing off a year long trip together, and the three-weeks-in-Thailand Swiss Misses Christine and Jasmine of Biel. Because we were all staying at the Bamboo Bungalows, were for the most part well traveled, and also not participating in the above mentioned political mess, we sort of bonded.
After a few days, the Danish veterinarian group showed up piecemeal over three days. They were more than a team, though, and included vets, nurses, students, girlfriends, children, and a Swedish camera crew. The lead nurse, Harpa from Iceland, brought a degree of organization and leadership that we really needed to seriously get going. By the time we finished there were 160 spayed or neutered animals wondering the island! We all thought this a great accomplishment considering the primitive conditions, limited resources and blazing hot weather. Tenna at one point described the situation as ‘kindergarten surgery’.
Once the Danes arrived, the asked for a few ‘reliable’ volunteers to help out with specific tasks. Initially I was assigned to Jessica who was in charge of the instrument sterilization process. The idea was that we would take used instrument sets (which I called ‘utensils’ for the first two days) with blood and guts on them, clean them up, rinse, place in a sterilization bath of Tang-colored Hexaclordrine (?) and then server them back up for use. As this process can easily lead to a bottle neck in operations, it is considered vital.
Jessica, to her masochistic credit, was there helping out despite her deep underlying fear of dogs—she had twice been attacked by a group of dogs in the past. While intellectually she knew there was little risk, especially cleaning tools, it was brave of her to be there. Unfortunately on the second day a dog got aggressive and completely out of control. Jessica panicked on a low level and made a hasty exit. She could be heard muttering to Mars, her husband, “just get me off this island”. So, our hero Stu moves in to take over the sterilization operations alone for the rest of the day.
(All teasing aside, Jessica and Mars made a huge contribution to the overall effort despite their early exit. Seriously, they were slaving away from the first moment when I was having doubts about the entire operation, stepping back and contemplating exit strategies. Cheers to them.)
The next day Christine became my dedicated help for the day. We quickly developed and optimized our cleaning system to allow for more instruments and operating tables. There was a good rhythm flowing so we had enough time to occasionally break for food and take some pictures. It was fun. We made a good team. To bad for me that Christine was heading back for home the next day. What was somewhat exciting was that that afternoon I was interviewed by Swedish Television 4 for a documentary that will apparently air in February in Scandinavia. I described where we were, what I was doing, where I was from, and why Chang beer is better than Singha. Important stuff—we’ll see if I make the cut.
The third day was hotter than usual, and I was alone on the sterilization center. This Japanese woman was supposed to help me out but she seemed busy helping out with pre-op stuff so I let it be. Also, many of the non-bamboo volunteers completely flaked on us leaving the team short-handed. A vet had brought along two extra surgical kits which gave me the confidence to continue alone. After five hours of work, I was hot, tired and ready for a break. That’s when Christine and Jasmine showed up to say goodbye and catch their 1400 boat back to Ranong. I helped them shuffle themselves and their packs to the pier and distinctly remember Christine putting her hand to my head and noting how red and hot I was. An hour later I sunk into the beginnings of a not-so-mild case of heat stroke.
Lucky for me, Sari (Danish daughter of the head vet) who had helped me out the first day a bit came to my aid. She’d grown up with all these little tools and processes and took over for me. I went back to my little grass hut, ate a sandwich and totally crashed out. This was the first night of four where I suffered from a nasty headache and an intermittent 39-40C fever. Apparently, three of the Danes also took ill about the same time. Sari ended up filling in for me the following day even though I promised her that I would show up. Oops.
In the end, it was a good effort. Not only Maggi (the founder and my original recruiter) thanked me, but also many of the Danish team which was a relief. You see, I had gotten a bit stroppy with two of them. The first was a male vet whom I mistakenly thought was the father of this 14-year-old spoiled brat prancing around on a scooter (which Maggi rented in her own name) like it was his personal death wish toy. It turns out the kid is the son of the girlfriend of the head vet. Oh, ah…fucking royalty. Anyway, the dude thought that I overstepped my bounds as a lowly volunteer. We later made up. Next was a Danish vet that I chastised for breaking one of my process rules: she turned in an incomplete surgical set, which is a real problem for my process. Seriously! She wouldn’t even say goodbye to me. Bitch. No Valhalla for her.
Posted by stu at November 3, 2005 01:01 PM
Comments
Like the sound of all these Scandinavians! Particularly the Icelander....
Posted by: Clement at November 4, 2005 06:46 PM
ummm, i don't know...sounds a bit stuck on himself? i can see the "island boy" persona taking over but the beer money will run out?
Posted by: mom at November 4, 2005 04:45 PM
glad to see others appreciate your winning personality!
know your place peasant boy....
Posted by: alice at November 3, 2005 11:56 PM