What the H#LL am I doing???

Have you ever had a moment in your life where you stopped, considered your surroundings and had to ask yourself "What the H#LL am I doing here?!?" Well, I did!!!!

We just took a trip to Uganda and Ethiopia and had an incredible time. We started out in southern Uganda at military to military training. There was a Uganda People's Defence Force soldier who ran the U.S. Army PT test (two miles) in 10:39 - BAREFOOT! And the guy who came in second ran it in 11 minutes flat - in FLIP FLOPS! These people can run!

Once we left there, we took a seven hour car ride on the highway of death to northern Uganda. We were roughly 30 km from the Sudan border, which I thought was pretty cool. We were up there for a veterinary civil action program. I will post the stories from the VetCap soon so you can read about some of the pretty cool things we're doing out here. This is actually a project I believe in.

I'm too ADHD to just sit and watch ANYTHING in life, so on day 1, I told the Army vets that I wanted to get involved. Thank God for Maj. Nina DiPinto - she told me to grab a needle and jump right in. By mid-morning, Cindy and I had learned how to age calves and goats, give shots (some on the rump, some in the neck), how to give the deworming "drench" and how to soak the skin to get rid of ticks. We treated cows, goats, sheep, pigs, dogs (and Cindy got a monkey on a leash too!)

At some point in the middle of the second afternoon, I realized that I was in a field in the middle of Uganda, wading through cow patties to wrestle a calf to the ground when it hit me - What The H#LL Am I Doing Here?!? Don't get me wrong - I had a BLAST! Fourteen years ago when I joined the Air Force, no one could have convinced me that this is where I'd be today. Even as I was there, I really couldn't believe it was happening.

But in typical Kati fashion, I did manage to elicit smiles from the locals - again at my own expense! So here we are, halfway through day 2 and a farmer tells the vets one of his cows is sick. Turns out this poor animal has a softball sized cyst on his rear flank. They need to drain it. This is the point where we all need to remember that I'm the southern California blonde girl. I didn't grow up on a farm and I believe that happy cheese comes from happy cows that I see while driving down the 60 to my grandparents' house. I had no idea what "draining a cyst" might entail. Yeah... I won't scar your mind's eye with the details. I will just fast forward to the part of the story where the smell hits me. It was a stench that I can't even being to describe (be thankful for that!)

Next thing I know, I'm on my knees in the grass giving back to the Earth the meager breakfast I had consumed hours before. This doesn't bother me so much... I've always had a weak stomach and I'm not new to the regurgitation game. What DID bother me was what comes next.

I look over to my right and see a cluster of local village women. And they're LAUGHING. Yes, they're pointing, laughing and mocking me. These are women who have never thought to don a bra, keep their babies strapped to their backs and gaily walk barefoot through cow sh!t all day long and THEY'RE LAUGHING AT ME!!!!

So I did the only thing I could do at that point... I rinsed my mouth, smiled, waved for the crowd and went back to work... once again wondering "What The H#LL Am I Doing Here?!?"