Sugar Cane Harvest

As we mentioned last month, now is the time of the sugar cane harvest and with the weather improving things are moving on at a pace. It is quite strange travelling down what were extremely narrow lanes only to see large swathes of agricultural land where only a few days before there was no view to either side with the sugar cane almost encroaching onto the road and standing easily over 2 meters high. Now the sugar cane is being cut the whole area is opening up and as you can see from this picture the more that is cut the further the donkeys have to pull it before they even get to a track. Though many tractors have arrived in the area there is so much to be cut that the donkeys are working flat out and so is AWOL.

At the start of the month they started cutting the sugar cane about half a kilometre from the land on which we will build the AWOL Medical Centre and we thought it wouldn't take long to clear but only now can we see just how massive the farming area of El Marise is. We cannot take the car onto the fields but people with problems wave at us so we stop and then they have to get the donkey to us. It will be so much easier when we have the AWOL Medical Centre and a permanent vet as they will be able to call in with their donkey on the way to or from work. We are seeing just too many sprains and blood wounds from overwork and badly fitted tack but AWOL is doing all we can to improve the situation for animal and owner alike.

Our thanks go to the Brooke Animal Hospital in Luxor who are always most helpful when we need any advice and to vets Mustafa and Bassim who do what they can to help us even though they are based in Gebble which is on the east bank of Luxor and a long way from El Marise. One evening we were in El Marise with Mustafa and Bassim until around 10.30 p.m. and though we had taken up so much of their time on this occasion they would accept no payment as they appreciate what AWOL is doing for the poor of the community.

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