EDITOR’S NOTE: The author [pictured above with the jawbone of a cow] just started a two year hitch in the Peace Corps doing health counseling in rural Paraguay.
BY SAINT JOHN BARNED-SMITH I was walking back from a pickup soccer game yesterday. One of my fellow [Peace Corps] trainees called me over to where he was standing with three other people. They had clustered around a black cow tied to a tall pole, which it was circling slowly. “Hurry up, we’re helping a cow give birth,” he said. That’s when I noticed two miniscule hooves poking out underneath the cow’s tail. The group – two Americans and two Paraguayans had been trying to get the calf out of the cow for the last 40 minutes. Before I had arrived, Ignacio – one of the Paraguayans – had to reach way into the cow to get the calf aligned to come out. It was a more difficult labor than usual because it was a first time birth for the mother.
The calf’s hooves and forelegs were slick and slimy with amniotic fluid. When the mother pushed hard, its nose protruded slightly. Its tongue poked out to the side, and its eyes were closed. Together, four of us grasped the calf’s forelegs and pulled, slipping and sliding on the slick amniotic fluid, while Ignacio tried to stretch the upper flap of the vagina over the top of the calf’s head, to no avail. Small globs of bloody mucous looking stuff slipped out.
We regrouped, and someone called for a towel. We wrapped that around the calf’s hooves, and, finally finding a decent handhold, three of us hauled back in a long slow heave. With a whoosh, the calf’s head slipped out of its mother, and suddenly half of the critter had emerged from her. Its head and shoulders hung limp, its eyes were closed and its nostrils unmoving. With another tug, it slipped all the way out. It wasn’t breathing. Ignacio began rubbing its ribbing cage. “Para empezar su corazon,” he said, or something to that effect. It lay there, limp, in a pile of sugar cane leaves. Finally, a twitch of the nostrils, and the eyes opened. MORE
PREVIOUSLY:
THE PEACE CORPS DIARIES: Letter From Paraguay
THE PEACE CORPS DIARIES: Letter From Paraguay
THE PEACE CORPS DIARIES: Letter From Paraguay