City to Savannah: Exchanging my city Vellies for bush Vellies

I’m Dr Suné Ferreira, veterinarian, occasional tree climber, full-time animal wrestler, and proud owner of more pairs of veldskoene than is probably necessary.

My job? The seemingly mundane city life workday where emergencies means a Yorkie with gas, a cat who didn’t quite land on all four paws, a monkey that has lost its bananas or a parrot that decided to eat its’ owner’s diamond ring.

Currently? I’m the vet you call when a buffalo has a limp or a lioness looks like she’s eaten something funny. Yes, I frequently trade in my city vellies for bush vellies, literally and figuratively and it’s been the ride of a lifetime. If you’re curios, or maybe a fellow vet, wondering whether the wild is calling your name, here’s the low-down on how it all changes when your “clinic” has no walls and your patients outweigh your bakkie.

Welcome to the wild where nothing goes to plan, and that’s the plan. In the city, life is, dare I say, easy. Coffee machines work or the coffee shop is just around the corner, bloods get done or sent to a lab with one phone call, and if something breaks, you call a technician. Out here, if something breaks, you have to make use of “n boer maak n plan” skill, mostly having to fix it with duct tape, a few cable ties and a prayer that it just holds until the job is done.

Appointments? To some extent yes, but your "schedule" depends on when the tracker spots the hippo with the snare or if the client’s zebra hasn’t wandered off into the next property. But that’s part of the magic. Every day is a new adventure, giving way to multiple learning opportunities, all wrapped up in dust, sweat and bucket loads of contentment only the bush can provide.

Let’s just lay it out. City vet: Heart murmur in a dachshund, cat with a hairball, bunny with bloat and a client who googled everything having worst case scenarios in their head. Bush vet: Elephant with a snare wound, nyala with a piece of pipe stuck around its foot, farmers who offers biltong as payment and a cold beer as thanks.

There are no blood machines, no air conditioning and no Uber Eats. But there's space. There’s silence. There’s sun rises and sunsets that leaves you in awe of God’s creation. The kind of raw, unscripted nature that makes you forget you ever owned scrubs.

It might sound divine, but it is not all sunshine and roses. Having a dart not go off properly, thus having to track and re-dart the animal, can get you to have your garmin steps in for the day. Or trying to get an IV into a fighting, half conscious, buffalo can leave you bruised and battered with a few good stories to tell. Or having adrenaline pump through you as you realise while you were busy stalking a lioness the pride’s male was stalking you. Or feeling your breakfast come up after the helicopter you are darting wildebeest from is taking one turn too many might leave you green and the pilot having to do an emergency landing.

There is also the sad realisation that as with any clinic patient, we lose patients in the bush. It is inevitable. Whether to a snare, a compromised body condition, a bad penetrating wound, it is never easy and it sometimes leaves you discouraged, questioning yourself and your abilities as a vet. There are so many uncontrollable factors that can go wrong, a dart gun that gives problems, a dart than doesn’t go off properly, improper dart placement, missed darts, environmental factors like wind or heat, ground crew that don’t understand their assignment, adverse drug reactions, the list goes on and on. But this too leaves no room for a dull moment, giving way to opportunities to learn, adapt and improve.

I won’t lie, it’s tough. You’re hot, dirty, and often swatting flies away from…well, everything. But then, there's that moment. The split second when your dart hits true. The animal goes down smoothly. The team moves like clockwork. You're deep in the wild, heart racing, and you remember, this is why I do what I do. You get to help animals that don’t know you exist. You connect with people that can have a lasting impact on your and their lives. You laugh a lot, sometimes at yourself and you grow, not just as a vet, but as a human.

If you're standing at a crossroad, staring down at your shiny city vellies and wondering if they’ll survive the bush, I can tell you with hundred percent certainty they won’t, but you will.

Out here, you'll trade creature comforts for creatures that test your limits. You'll swap clinic walls for acacia trees, fluorescent lights for starlit skies, and routine for chaos. And somewhere between darting a rhino and treating a bushpig on the back of a bakkie, you’ll find something city life can’t offer you, freedom, purpose, silence and one amazing story.

A dart gun becoming an extension of my arm, worn out and battered vellies that has seen better days, daily added scrapes and bruises, yet my heart is full, my head filled with wonder every night as I lay down to sleep, not knowing the adventures that awaits me in the morning.

Written by: Dr Suné Ferreira