The Big Training Day

Yesterday we headed out of Mbarara to the village of Kiberebere to meet with the paravets from all of the parishes and do a one day training session on vaccinating. We are planning to vaccinate around 1600 goats in the next week upon the arrival of our vaccine in Mbarara.
Immediately when we arrived at around 10am there were a bunch of people gathered outside the hall. My stomach was churning with butterflies as I wasn’t sure how they would receive our presentation. They were very happy to see us, and extended a very warm welcome to us when we arrived. A few spoke English, most spoke only a little but their smiles and gestures said it all. We started out chatting, then we sang a song for them that we had made up about Kaberebere, which means ‘let them come and see for themselves’. It is a really cool name. They sang along with us, and then once everyone arrived we moved into the hall to start the training (the people from far away took longer, and we are on African time so nothing starts at the time you set).
With the help of Hilda, Francis, and our friend Sajja who acted as our translator, we had a good discussion about sudden death in goats. We explained to them in a simple manner what we are going to vaccinate against, and how. It is difficult to explain such a topic as clostridial disease to someone who does not speak English, and who has not learned in depth about the immune system. They were very good though and when we asked them questions after each concept, they all responded with correct answers. And they asked us some very good questions, which means they were absorbing the information as well as understanding and attempting to figure out the process themselves.
We had a wonderful lunch made by a local woman named Margaret, who made matoke, sweet potatoes, cassava, g-nut sauce, dodo, bean sauce and many other local dishes. The paravets all ate with their hands, but we wimped out and used forks. There were some real characters in the group. All of them were very sharp, but a few of them were really keen. Innocent, a paravet from Nyamuyanja parish asked a ton of questions. And Ibriham is another very swift learner. We gave them some dewormer, and every time they were grateful to us they would clap 6 times, put their hands together and motion towards us, sending us their thanks. We would then respond by opening our arms then drawing them in, as if we were hugging ourselves, to accept their appreciation.
About the end of the day there was a paravet named Nakate who made up a song about us, in which she thanked all the Canadian vets for training the paravets. It was a beautiful song in Runyankore, the local language. We talked a bit more with them about some of the issues they are facing, and what further training they would like, which we said we would be happy to work on.
The best part of the day for me was when we asked the paravets if we could have a hug before they left, and they all laughed and came up to us for a farewell hug.
At the end of the day when Hersh, Rocky and I were reflecting on the training session, we all agreed that we were so impressed with the enthusiasm and learning capabilities of the paravets. It is exciting that we will be working closely with them in the next 2 months.