Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Here I am scribing again

Yesterday I brought the second year Animal Science students on an exhumation exercise in Kg Tok Jembal, in Zuki's horse farm.

It was not what you are expecting. There was no one murdered or anything like that. It was the digging up and collection of skeleton of a horse buried there almost one year ago.

The exercise was painstaking and exhaustive, to say the least. Students had to take turns in digging up the horse's grave.

The sandy grave made the work more difficult as it kept on falling as mini avalanches as we got deeper.

Blisters started forming on students' hands and fingers as they zealously worked their way down.

Reaching four, five feet and there was still no signs of the dead horse. We almost gave up.

Then a few flies flew in - a sure sign of something rotten.

The students kept on going. Then there was a tarpaulin and a piece of long rope unearthed. Opening up the material covering the dead horse, they slowly and painstakingly began collecting the bones.

The frustration and despair were suddenly transformed into joy and jubilation. Everybody was excited collecting and identifying the bones.

The first bone unearthed was the humerus. Then came the carpals, the radius and ulna, the scapula.

Finally, at five something I called it a day. We had collected 98% of the bones, even the hyoid bone. WE missed the fourth third phalange though.

Exhausted and sweaty, I left the city campus at 6.20 and went straight to the Yunnan's rice chicken shop at Batu Buruk for a rather late lunch.

After lunch I continued to Maidin for some juice and canned fruits and tuna for the first Ramadhan's syahur.

Tired, I called it a day at 9.00.

1 comment:

Wan Sharif said...

Ha.. dok gi terawikh ssuraa