![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.spaysisters.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/image1.jpeg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nChris then kindly drove us to Diane\u2019s house, where we met Diane, an english teacher in the local school. \u00a0 An amazing lady completely passionate about her cause.\u00a0 After all there are few people I know prepared to live amidst 130 dogs, luckily for her, she is about to move, as she has bought a plot of land.\u00a0 Then we set off again to Paul\u2019s place! This was were we were going to live for the next 5 days.<\/p>\n
Paul was a true Kanak, he had a lovely 4 wheel drive, a very generous nature and his houses were open plan and unfinished! Despite valiant efforts of trying to keep the mosquitos away,\u00a0 Toni and Helena stoically suffered the consequences.\u00a0 So if Paul was providing the accommodation, his sister in law, Eugenie, was providing the food.\u00a0 Yes, the food was delicious and there was more than enough, including entire baguette sandwiches each for lunch.<\/p>\n
Having arrived, deciding which mattress in which room we were all happy with, we then went about organising ourselves for our first day of operating.\u00a0 Diane had organised that we were going to stay locally in Houailou which was well planned.\u00a0 As we started to unload the Spay sisters stuff, we realised that in fact we had No antibiotics and No sedatives\u2026 well we did have a bottle of this and a bottle of that but no where near the bottles we needed for our mission.\u00a0 OMG, what had happened, what had gone wrong? Basically it was an email miscomprehension between Sharon and I, followed by a lack of email reading by the others.\u00a0 The wonderful thing about disasters is that you always learn a heap from them.\u00a0 So on future trips, we will be double checking the TOP 5 (ketamine, domitor, torbugesic, rimadyl and LA amoxycillin) before we set off.<\/p>\n The problem was how to sort out the problem, Diane was not prepared to let us go into a local vets and purchase the products, because we were not meant to be there.\u00a0 She was sure the local vets would be very annoyed feeling that we were stealing their business.\u00a0 An idea that we have encountered on previous trips but which is foolish, after all we are there for a short period of time and we are only sterilising dogs\/cats belonging to people without the means to do it themselves.\u00a0 There are no pdsa\u2019s, or rspca neutering vouchers for people on low incomes.\u00a0 We got in touch with Sabine, an old running friend of mine in France, who now lives in Noumea and she managed to via a friend get us a load of valium from the chemist.<\/p>\n Our first day of operating went ok, we learnt that the dogs could be castrated with valium and ketamine but the combination was not sufficient for the bitches, irrespective of your speed! Also we were being presented with a lot more female dogs than males.\u00a0 Which as the aim is to decrease overpopulation problems is a good thing, but which at that moment in time when we weren\u00b4t sure how long our bottle of domitor would last, was a bad thing!<\/p>\n The first day went well, we didn\u2019t have Suzy yet so Sharon as the only nurse had to leap in all directions with vet\u00b4s screaming \u00b4top up\u00b4\u00b4top up\u00b4 but as always she managed still smiling.\u00a0 Toni our new girl, discretely got into the swing of things and once we had finished and packed up and\u00a0 returned to Paul\u2019s we got into our swimming costumes and Paul drove us the 5 mins to the totally empty beach and the sea was so warm.\u00a0 We all felt really lucky to be living this experience.\u00a0 That evening Suzy arrived.<\/p>\n So at the end of each day, we would get an email or a phone message or a visit when we were at Paul\u00b4s explaining were we would be going the following day.\u00a0 New Caledonia is basically a long island with a road around the edge and 2\\3rds of the way down a road across.\u00a0 Day 2 we were working in Nepoui, so it meant setting off at 6am.\u00a0 Another cultural fact about NC is that in general people go to bed at 9pm and wake up at 5.30 which as we were all jet lagged anyway worked fine with us.\u00a0 Setting off at 6am became routine for 8am starts.<\/p>\n Day 2 was another success, Diane had managed to buy 2 bottles of xylazine and 2 bottles of domitor, from a vet, who wished to remain anonymous!!\u00a0 so it was easier for the nurses and there were now 2 of them, easier for the vets as it was our second day and Hel\u2019s music is fab.\u00a0 As we were leaving, the man\u00b4s whose yard we were using, approached me to thank me and said \u2018thank you ever so much for your hard work girls, I have some cannabis in the car, can I give it to you as a gift\u2019.\u00a0 The professional within me replied \u2018No, thanks for the offer, but no thanks\u2019.<\/p>\n Day 3 we went into the centre of the Island alittle bit, there were not that many animals, but it didn\u2019t matter, we did everything we could.\u00a0 We also managed to buy a bottle of antibiotics for a supposed horse injury and the majority of the team got taken to skinny dip in a mountain waterfall and the mango\u2019s were marvellous!<\/p>\n Day 4 , and another early start\u00a0 as we headed off to Kone, where we were welcomed into some one\u2019s house and their covered verandah.\u00a0 It was terribly hot, so operating in bikini tops became the trend!<\/p>\n Diane hadn\u00b4t organised anything for our 5th day but as Paul and Eugenie had been so welcoming, we decided to stay local (we could then have a much needed lie in till 7am!) and go and castrate a couple of pigs.\u00a0 Eugenie was surprised that we anaesthetised them and did not just turn them upside down!\u00a0 Then we returned and had an interesting encounter with a Caldoche (original white inhabitants) and his skinny lurcher like dogs.\u00a0 Dominique was luckily there to calm the situation and the man despite having arrived for wormers ended up having 4 of his dogs neutered.\u00a0 Helena then finished the operating day removing a leg from a dog with an atrophied, paralysed front limb with a sterilised builders saw!<\/p>\n It was our last night at Paul\u00b4s and so they gave us a party and the food was amazing with freshly caught lobst\u00a0 er and meat from the barbecue\u2026 The next day we packed up, tidied up said our goodbye\u2019s and left for the next bit of our trip back in Noumea. Our accommodation was split and so 4 of us stayed at Patricia\u00b4s and 3 stayed at Ilse and George\u2019s or so we thought until the following day when Patricia\u2019s group got moved nearer Ilse and George\u2019s to Vallon Dore.\u00a0 Sharon and Helena were obliged to get to know each other even better cuddling up in what they called a princess bed!!<\/p>\n Working day 6, involved a lot of cats all delivered early in the morning to our garage overhang which made a change as we had been doing nearly all dogs.\u00a0 And we only had one escapee! which wasn\u2019t our doing! We met Jan, a very friendly man you was very useful organising and who teamed up with us and wished to come and help us the following day.<\/p>\n Day 7 the squat, so we arrived at the squat bright and early to meet Sarah, who lived there and was volunteering her porch until we spotted a better one.\u00a0 Light is really necessary to operate and so it has to be facing the sun, and not in the shade.\u00a0 We all agreed this was our best day starting with Sarah stating \u2018 yes she would get us running water, but she just had to turn off the meter first\u2019.\u00a0 Then Jan asking us to creatively position fruit and veg on palm leaves so that we could make a tribal offering.\u00a0 How we didn\u2019t laugh is impossible to say!\u00a0 An absolutely delicious lunch of coconut rice and fish.\u00a0 Sharon even got to show off her skills at suddenly stabbing 4-5 month old beach dogs. And we finished our 50 operations just before the sudden down pour happened so all the\u00a0 animals had staggered off before getting too soaked!<\/p>\n Day 8 in the small garden behind the high rise low income town house, we were greeted by our hosts and our new friend, Armelle who was a very interesting lady, widely travelled and who spoke English.\u00a0 At the end of our day she decided we really needed to go and drink the local speciality which was Cava, and no it wasn\u00b4t the fizzy wine, but in fact a kind of earth, wood drink, drunk from a half coconut shell which made your lips and mouth go tingly and causes liver problems if you drink 7 or 8 so we all only drank one!<\/p>\n So for our last planned working day, Helena had got herself and Dominique organised to go to what she afterwards thought may have been a dog breeders, but they were welcomed allowed to swim in the pool and well fed.\u00a0 Due to it being far from Noumea, they were able to make a day trip of it and visit a museum on route.\u00a0 Whereas Toni and I had paid flights to Mare, where we arrived, were greeted and taken to a kind of fenced community of doctors, midwives, teachers \u2026. here we set up as usual and operated on the 10 dogs that lived there.\u00a0 Toni, was delighted as she was now operating at the same speed as me, and flank spayed a approximately 16wk old puppy.<\/p>\n The operating was now over\u2026 and we still had a couple of days in New Caledonia.\u00a0 Thanks to Helena\u2019s research and Sabine\u2019s input we had a fantastic day on the Island of ?.\u00a0 We were offered kway\u2019s before we set off which was a good thing because the trip there was VIOLENT, to such an extent that poor Ann, could not lift her arm above shoulder level for a whole 2hours following it and that didn\u2019t take into account our bleeding knuckles from holding onto the rope as the boat literally leapt about on the waves.\u00a0 It was worth it though, the day was great with good diving, good food and generally some down time.\u00a0 Poor Helena did not have that advantage as Didier was too interested in her!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n After the following day, swimming on horse back, another first for a few, we returned to our sites, Suzy was leaving early the following day and the rest of us were going to stay at Sabine\u00b4s for the night before our flight the following morning.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n