News
Caring for the donkeys of El Marais
March 11, 2008, 4:3AM MT
By Sharon St. Joan
AWOL shines a light of compassion
AWOL shines a light of compassion
By Sharon St Joan, Best Friends Network
Across the river Nile from Luxor, in the south of Egypt, along the West bank of the Nile, out of the way of the tourist areas, can be found the villages of El Marais and Armant. The average income there is less than a dollar a day, and people are dependent for survival on their donkeys.
In February, the sugar cane crop, which stood over six feet tall along the roads, was harvested, and it was the job of the donkeys to haul the crop to market. Heavy loads can cause wounds on the donkeys face, sides, and back.
Animal Welfare of Luxor (AWOL) works with these donkeys and with the people of El Marais, often late into the night, spending time healing the wounds of each donkey and teaching the people how to care for their donkeys to avoid these injuries in the future.
Two months earlier, in December, those of us from Best Friends who had attended the MENAW Conference in Cairo, and who also had the chance to visit some of the animal organizations in Luxor, were able to sit down with the people of AWOL. It was impossible not to be struck by their caring and sincerity. Jan Bennell was absent from the group, but does valuable work at a distance from the U.K. Graham and Pauline Warren from the U.K, and Sabine Borkes from Holland, make up the core of the group working with the donkeys in the villages.
Graham writes about one of the donkeys (in the photo above with the boy in the sugar cane field):
"This donkey is one AWOL has been attending to for some while now. You wouldn’t have wanted to see it when we first saw it, but with an AWOL head collar, the nose has healed and where the bad yoke rubbed the areas on both sides of the neck, that area is healing well too. Every other day we re-wrap the soft yoke because regrettably this donkey still has to work. The family welcome us and are extremely happy with the improvement as this is the last thing that they wanted, but they just didn’t know what to do. This is far from an isolated case, and this kind of wound takes such a long time to heal. We now just treat the area with cod liver oil. The family keep the wound clean and now take the tack off whenever the donkey is not working.
"A little help from AWOL who takes the time to talk to the family makes all the difference to the working life of this donkey."
AWOL show a great deal of empathy for the families of the donkeys, understanding that it is not their intention to harm the donkey, but in order for the family to have any income, the donkey must work.
There are around 2,000 families in El Marais. Typically each family has a donkey and may also have horses, cows, chickens or sheep.
The AWOL team teaches the people the importance of rest and water for the donkey, and how essential it is to keep the hooves clean; otherwise painful stones can become lodged in the hooves. The hooves must also be filed correctly.
These are families who do not come into the town of Luxor; they stay in their own area, so AWOL drives across the Nile to treat their donkeys. The schools there consist mostly of a small room, with twenty kids sitting on the floor. It's important to educate the younger generation too, in the proper care of their animals, so that there will be a brighter future for the people and their donkeys.
Graham writes about how they are replacing the tack of the donkeys:
"Our main aim is to ensure that the animals of the west bank of Luxor have the best life that they can, and in order to do this we need to stop as many injuries as we can before they occur, so with this in mind we have been looking at the tack that is fitted to the extremely hard working donkeys. We in England and America will never know what it is like to have no income at all apart from what our donkey can earn for us. If the donkey doesn’t work, then the family doesn’t eat.
"We have been changing head collars to properly fitted ones without the chain or wire that is normally used that cuts into the nose or across the crown of the head just behind the ears. We make the tack from locally purchased materials so that the owners will be able to repair and replace it as and when it is necessary. We never just give out tack, we only replace bad tack with proper tack and never make any charge, but they must give us the bad tack in order that we can destroy it so that it can’t be used on another animal.
"We replace, improve or repair all tack, and it was really great to be waved down by this owner who over the weeks had been watching how we worked and had then taken the time to make all his own tack. He was so proud, and it really gave us a great feeling as this is a great endorsement of the work of AWOL."
Congratulations to AWOL on their acquisition in February of land where they'll be able to build a center for the donkeys on the west bank of the Nile!
What you can do
To find out more about the invaluable work that AWOL does, please visit their website:
http://www.eoluk.co.uk/awol/awol_about_us.htm