Playing around with Arwen

Horses have such a calming effect on me... Brings out the child within!

I'm going to miss my girls!!

Ishtar

Goodbye so soon

I can't believe it's almost time to go! I've been here for sixth months now, but it feels like I came yesterday... On Thursday it's already time to fly back to Sweden! What happened???

I'm going to miss Zinder!!! Fortunately, I'll be back again and considering the schedule that awaits me in Sweden, time will probably go even faster than it did here!

Ok, better go back to all the things that need to be done before I leave. Things are getting hectic now!

Ishtar

Merging Swedish and African fashion!

Voilà! This summer I bought a colorful skirt but haven't had a top to match it. Then finally I gave Ringo the tailor a piece of cloth that Sofia had left behind, and he fixed me a new bazain top!

Now this is what girls calls fun!

Ishtar

PS: Now I just have to fin matching flip-flops! (just kidding...)

This one is for you, Anette!

Recognize your horse??

You shouldn't really, considering what she has been eating these past few months...

Ishtar

The eternal second...

Arwen raced again today, the first time since her past disaster. I gave YB free reins to race in whatever distance he wanted - after all, he's the one doing the work and as a jockey, he only wants to race where he thinks he can win - and he chose the 1000m - my least favorite. But I thought why not. Although it wasn't her distance, she came in a good second place (Arwen the eternal second!) and that was fun. It's the last I see her race before I go, because according to her new Swedish training schedule, she's only to race every three weeks!

Arwen & Yaronbaba gets a visit from Arwen's exjockey Chinada

Ishtar

Mandara

Today, we rode to the village of Mandara, situated about 25 minutes of horse-walk from Zinder... The pictures I took with my mobile phone doesn't do the village justice (one of my favorite places on earth!) but it does give a clue! It's one of the few villages built of ash-colored mudbricks. Next time I'll have to bring a camera!

Ali on his boss' new horse...

Ali's son and nephew are riding Ali's boss' other two horses (also new).

Reliable mares!

This afternoon, my two cousins Daniel and Jonathan took the horses for a ride the village of Kasheni. The boys did great and the horses were a 100% obedient. Guess who was a proud cousin/horseowner??

Ishtar

You're it!

Ok, so a friend of mine just let me know that I was "it" and that I should write six weird things about myself. As if six would be enough, lol! Being part Scandianvian part Nigerien, what did she expect??? :-)

Anyway, here's my contribution:

1. I refer to machines as if they are people, and when they don’t work or act like I want them to, I take for granted that they are male.

2. I can’t stand when series are broken. If I buy a novel that I like, I often want to have all the novels that of the same author but I often never have the time to read to read them.

3. I like many things but I don’t have any favorite color, favorite movie, favorite novel, favorite musician or a best friend. I’m just not a “favorite”-sort of person!

4. When I’m in Niger, I’m nuts about matching colors, even down to my flip-flops (hence why I have six pairs).

5. I have a funny attitude to sleep. My brain is working at its peak, moments before I fall asleep; when I say that I’m tired and that I’m about to fall asleep, it literally means that as soon as my head hits the pillow, I’ll be fast asleep ; I wake up if someone is standing in the doorway watching me and it happens that I wake up after having fallen asleep and find myself in the middle of a conversation with someone – a conversation that I have started. Needless to say, those conversations are often pretty wacky and it’s as good as impossible to follow my train of thoughts.

6. I mostly talk to God in English, sometimes in Swedish but never in French.
   

The rules specify that I should choose other bloggers who should do the same, but I think I wait a while for some of my good friends to start blogging before I pass it on... :-)

Ishtar

Dehydrated and emaciated

My brother is doing well (fortunately, the wound wasn't deep), but I have another creature at home who isn't. Aslan has been sick for two weeks now and hasn't been eating for ten days. We're not sure what he got exactly, but it seems to be a combination of virus together with exhaustion after having courted Kinza for two weeks on a fasting stomach.
Between him and Arwen (who is doing fine now by the way) I have had my hands full making sure they're all right, especially after Aslan got dehydrated and I had to force him to swallow 40ml of sugar, salt & water mix every 20 minutes or so. Then his leg doubled in size due to a negative reaction to the antibiotics he got and this caused him to get even more depressed.
He is now getting better again, but that is after a lot of hard work and medication. He is still not eating properly (in his mind, he was food-poisoned; it's always the food that's to blame) but at least he started to eat liver yesterday and we're just taking it very slowly from there.

Ishtar

Hitting the concrete

Today, Josef and my father came back from Kano, where they had dropped off Renate and Tabita at the airport. An hour or so after arriving, we got a phone call from Josef who was bleeding. He had jumped over a telephone wire and hit the wall with his head. It did not look pretty but fortunately, Elisabeth is a trained nurse so she was handed over the responsibility of taking care of the wound. Once it was bandaged, my Dad and I brought him home with us to spend the night. My mom suggested that he might want to borrow one of my riding helmets next time he decides to be so athletic! :-)

Ishtar

Wedding celebration on my street

It was the son of the guard our of neighboring house who got married (a young fellow who works for the MSF) but I don't know to whom...

They set up a huge tent in the street and celebrated for two days.
"Listen," YB said to me as we rode by, "Nigerien music!" I laughed because all I could hear was the tam-tam drums echoing a rhythm... :-)

Hehe, sometimes it's hard to get keep the phone straight when your own mount is trotting away!

Ishtar

No foal!

This week, the two Nigerien vets Dr Madougou and Dr Hamzy conducted a rectal palpation on Arwen (their first ever on a mare!) and I finally got the answer to one of many questions concerning my little mare: Arwen is not in foal! Not much of a surprise really, but she did have us fooled there for a while, while her belly growing and all the signs of impending birth... She must have resorbed very early on (when it's easy to miss), but I'm just happy that there was nothing seriously wrong with her (like having a dead foal stuck somewhere). They did not find any cysts or anything else that seemed to be the matter, and the only thing I am waiting for now is for my mare to return to her normal cycle and not be so sensitive all the time. But that seems to be taking its time and right now, she seems to be in some sort of mourning! ...Which my jockey is taking more seriously than I! But then again, I have my own hormones to tend to regularly so maybe that's why I'm not so alarmed... :-D I'll let you know when Arwen falls in love again! It might be a few years though before I actually allow her to mate again. Not while she's still in training, that's for sure!

Ishtar