What's lifesaving and smells bad?

The rumble of a truck interrupted our post-dinner celebration of Ashley’s birthday. Doug, Tim, Sarah, Jack, Jennifer and I went outside to meet it and the 49 goats that were packed tightly into the back. Remember the give-a-goat program that I mentioned around Christmastime? These goats are paid for by that program and were arriving for the goat distribution happening this week.

We give these goats to women in primarily two categories. First, we try to give goats to HIV-positive women who are weaning their children to reduce the risk of transmission. But weaning is unhealthy for a 6-month old and these kids often have serious nutritional problems, so we hope to supply them with a steady source of quality protein to help them as they lose their most important food source. Second, we find many newborns whose mothers died in childbirth. These kids generally have a very poor prognosis, since whatever they get to replace breast-milk is less nutritious and less hygienic.

So there we were, together with several Ugandans working on the project, at 9PM on Tuesday night, gathered around a truck full of goats. Someone on the truck handed them down where I was waiting to grab this goat around the legs, like giving it a big hug and holding it to my chest. A pretty fun sight, I’m sure. We carried them into the various pens for males and females of different sizes. They ranged from young female goats weighing probably 20 pound to bucks weighing around 70 pounds. It was a funny and smelly job. I changed clothes and washed my arms and face before returning to Ashley’s party, but it couldn’t fully rid myself of the smell of goats until taking a long shower.

The actual goat distribution was on Thursday, and there were probably even funnier images there. First was the mandatory ceremony, involving speeches from team members and politicians, and lunch (the always has to be lunch). After this the goats were given, and each recipient was matched with a specific goat. Since these are exotic dairy goats, we keep track of them and Lammech visits the goat recipients to do veterinary check ups and the like, so good record keeping is essential. I would be handed a tag number, with the job of going into the pen and find that goat. While this process sounds simple enough, you now need to picture me running around in a pen full of goats who are all very upset, trying to grab one and check its tag number. Numerous times I almost slipped and fell in goat dung and urine. After a while my goat wrangling improved, and I was pretty effectively snagging goats by the hind legs as they ran past.

After all the antics, laughter, and annoyances of unloading and then catching the goats, the meaning of it all hit me again as I watched desperate mothers walk away with children on their backs and goat-ropes in their hands.