Republic of the Marshall Islands
Our final stop came in Majuro, RMI. Unlike the Solomon Islands where we had to look for work, there was an abundance of stray dogs roaming around and it was apparent within minutes of being on the island. RMI is made up of several atolls (look it up) and islands and we we focused mainly on the atoll of Majuro where the capitol and a good percentage of the people were living.
We had established a local contact there who along with other volunteers made our jobs easy. They organized places for us to go and had arranged for people to bring their pets in just like a normal clinic would run. Overall we saw 48 animals for surgery, and over 400 for vaccinations and deworming. The people there all said it was a much needed effort as the economy isn't good enough to have a veterinarian permanently on staff. They rely solely on humanitarian missions like this one to help out, but these only happen so often.
The last day couldn't have come fast enough. After the last animals came we donated the rest of our supplies to their small organization and gave several ideas about how to get funding for vets to visit more often.
Now we are a couple days out from Hawaii where we will debark the ship. The last couple of months has been a interesting and enjoyable experience that I will never forget. Looking back we did alot of great things that got overshadowed by the human medical side who did extremely well in their mission as well. I met alot of interesting people and saw alot of awesome places that I probably never would have seen without this mission. Overall I am pleased with how this all went and hope that this type of mission continues in the future and one day I might get selected to join up with another group and do this all over again.
We had established a local contact there who along with other volunteers made our jobs easy. They organized places for us to go and had arranged for people to bring their pets in just like a normal clinic would run. Overall we saw 48 animals for surgery, and over 400 for vaccinations and deworming. The people there all said it was a much needed effort as the economy isn't good enough to have a veterinarian permanently on staff. They rely solely on humanitarian missions like this one to help out, but these only happen so often.
The last day couldn't have come fast enough. After the last animals came we donated the rest of our supplies to their small organization and gave several ideas about how to get funding for vets to visit more often.
Now we are a couple days out from Hawaii where we will debark the ship. The last couple of months has been a interesting and enjoyable experience that I will never forget. Looking back we did alot of great things that got overshadowed by the human medical side who did extremely well in their mission as well. I met alot of interesting people and saw alot of awesome places that I probably never would have seen without this mission. Overall I am pleased with how this all went and hope that this type of mission continues in the future and one day I might get selected to join up with another group and do this all over again.
posted by Nickolaus Kersting at 4:31 PM
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