Today was a very long one. We made it back from the animal souk just as the Fondouk opened at 7:30 this morning. The souk was not very busy today, but the scene was very much how I had imagined it would be. The market takes place on a large dirt/gravel lot. People just stand around with their animals, waiting for a potential buyer to take a look. There were mostly mules and work animals available, but some nice horses (possibly to be sold as racehorses) were there as well.

One of the finer animals for sale at the souk.

The most dramatic case today was a bloated goat (the bloat persisted despite medical therapy yesterday). Suspecting a foreign body obstruction of the GI tract, which is very common around here because animals have easy access to all kinds of trash, we performed a rumenotomy. We removed a large amount of huge plastic bags and various other garbage from the rumen, which made for a very rewarding surgery. Considering the volume of the trash, I wonder how hard the goat had to try to eat all of that stuff