Ina on the road

I’m in the large animal hospital of Mahanakorn University once again. With me are two groups of students, three six year students and four third year students. Each group has one they call for to translate, and the third year guys seem to have made a plan on who drives me home what day – still nobody lets me walk, although it is much shorter than taking the U-Turns on the street. But what can I say, we also drive when we go to the restaurant that is literally across the street from the dorm. Our first patient is a three month old calf with pneumonia who gets better after a week by daily nebulization. Then there is the cow with the paralyzed hind leg who gets electrostimulation, vitamins and massages, but nobody knows what the cause is. Cara, the horse whose wounds just won’t heal who has already been her in February. The university’s calves get dehorned. And lastly, the stallion who injured himself when he panicked in the transporter. He, too, gets daily massages and laser acupu...

“If all insects on earth would to disappear, within 50 years all life on earth would end. If all human beings disappeared from the earth, within 50 years all forms of life would flourish.” -           Jonas Salk This quote is on the back of the Treehouse staff’s T-shirts. What they mean: Let’s try to live and flourish together instead. I wanted to breathe clean air, and hear birds and insects instead of traffic, and unplug and recharge – without having to go a long way. Yeah, right, you say, but you live in Bangkok. Good thing there is just the place. Yes, inside this big, smog-plagued, noisy, chaotic city. The place is called Bang Krachao, nicknamed „green lungs of Bangkok“. You can see it in the satellite pictures: It’s a green island midst all the grey. And it is, in fact, an island on the Chao Phraya River. Foto: Bangkok Tree House Before I even arrived in Thailand I knew that I would have to spend a w...

I have a few things to say. It’s sort of why I’m writing a blog. And as I change, the blog changes. It’s a personal blog, I write about my experiences, my opinions, and things that matter to me. And bear with me now, there’s actually a story coming further down. I don’t have all the answers, and I don’t have the solutions. But I want to find the solutions. And I want to encourage you, my readers, to also think about the things that matter in this world. Whether these be the same things I care about or not. Me saying “I can’t buy anything new with a clear conscience anymore” doesn’t mean we should all stop buying anything. Millions of people would lose their jobs, I don’t want that. What I mean is, we should think what, why and from whom we buy. Do we support the company’s ethics, their values? Do we think the price is fair? Do we think the person who actually made the thing gets most of the money, or are we mainly paying for the retailer and the packaging? And to ...