One unusual experience I had in Egypt was visiting Brooke Animal Hospital in Luxor. This free veterinary clinic also has branches in Cairo, Pakistan, India and Jordan — all places where horses and donkeys are still used extensively for work.
The hospital was started in 1934 by Dorothy Brooke, an English woman who had compassion for military horses used in the desert during World War I that were sold off into poor conditions following the war. The British are famous for their love of animals and she must have felt much as I did seeing some horses and donkeys in Egypt in sad shape, some being mistreated.
Egyptian animal owners for the most part do care, if only because a healthy animal adds to the welfare of the whole family. But poor people need money first to care for their families and understandably put an animal’s care after that.
In Luxor the clinic, started in 1966, treats any animal for free. Literature from the hospital says the clinic provides more than 2,300 treatments per month. I was given a tour of the meager facility with donkeys and horses occupying “inpatient” stalls. Horses pull “calishes,” the carriages that transport tourists along the Nile and to Karnak Temple. Donkeys are often owned by young boys in the rural areas and are used to transport goods and pull carts. These young boys enjoy riding their donkeys, too. I saw a group of them trotting through the streets of the little village much as we might see our youngsters riding bikes.
I am aware there are many humans in Egypt and other countries who need aid, but the plight of domestic work animals touches my heart. Animal lovers the world over will be inspired by these people who work in such overwhelming conditions to help the most helpless of creatures.
For me, a visit to that animal hospital on the other side of the world, made a human connection. Here I received the most thoughtful inquiry about the United States after 9/11. The kind young staff person who showed me around asked, in his limited English with much concern, if Americans were, “beginning to forget.” Looking into his eyes, I knew what he meant. Are we recovering? Are we sorting through the madness to distinguish the bad from the good? He asked, much like someone witness to a crime or an accident will stop, bend over the victim in concern and ask, “Are you O.K.?”
There is good and evil in all societies and there is good and bad in all of us. My visit, witnessing their service to animals and leaving them a little of my traveling money, made a connection from the best in me to the best in them. I told him yes, we’re getting better. I think he, too, understood what I meant.
The staff of Brooke Animal Hospital in Luxor on Feb. 26. Dr.Emad,veterinarian, is in the white coat. My friend Scott is the tall one in the back row.
Brooke Hospital for Animals is a registered charity in England. The address
is Broadmead House, 21 Panton Street, London SW1Y 4DR
There is also a nice website www.brooke-hospital.org.uk