A Disturbing Find

It's a dead donkey. It appears to have been dead for about 3 days or so because it is starting to ooze but the eyes still have fluid in them (Oh, the things you learn at Paramedic School).

I see dead animals on the side of the road a lot here. Dead sheep, goats and the like for the most part but this is a grown donkey. It does not appear to have been struck by a vehicle so I dont know how it died, I can only speculate.

I see them a lot. Donekyes that is. The bedo (bedouins) and the sheep herders use them for transport and as beasts of burden. Life is hard over here and doubly so for this poor beasty.

This poor animal was most likely born here which means that it never saw a green field of grass, never got to play in a lake, river, stream or pond. It never had a day in the warm sun just laying in the grass watching insects buzz about. No it did not.

This is the way that animals live and die here. In the heat, the unrelenting sun, in the oppression that is endless, mindless toil. The donkey was alone and excluded from companionship of its kind with only the sheep herder and the sheep for company.

I was filled with remorse looking at this and will remember it. I dont know why but with all the death and suffering that I have seen the human side does not affect me as much as that of a dumb animal. Maybe it is because we as humans make choices to stand and fight or go about our merry way. (Fight or Flight, another Paramedic lesson)

The donkey did not have that choice. It led a miserable life in miserable weather doing a monotonous, miserable set of chores. Maybe it is better off. What galls me though is how the person who benifited from the work and life of this animal did not even care enough to bury it. They just leave it there, bloating up in the sun and waiting for some Indian, Pakistani, or Bangladeshi to come by in a trash truck and haul it off. That or let it rot.

How we treat animals says much about our cultures. Draw your own conclusions form this one, I have.