In her fifth and final entry in a series of blogs, read about vet Jo Hardy’s experience of volunteering with SPANA in Morocco. Jo recently appeared on the BBC Two programme, Young Vets…
I finished my volunteering experience at the Marrakech centre with Boubka the vet. On the first day together we treated a donkey which had a horrific huge wound to his leg. I got to know this donkey well over my last few days and started to call him Tiny, because he really was the smallest adult donkey I had come across. He was small and kind in his nature too, always wanting to please and never putting up a fuss when cleaning his wound.
The next case that I was heavily involved with was a mule foal, who was still growing into his ears! The foal had an umbilical hernia which needed to be surgically corrected and I was really pleased with the final result.
We had several emergencies cases come in as well, including three cases of colic.
I was sad to leave the clinic, and Morocco, after my two weeks working for SPANA. Looking back on it, not only did I have the chance to contribute to improving the lives of people through improving the lives of their animals, SPANA had given me the opportunity to learn a great deal, particularly about emergency care of very sick horses, donkeys and mules. I can’t bear to think what Morocco would be like without them there.
