Overestimated

This weekend, the Ishtar Mares were at the race track, although it was only Arwen who was competing. Sahara was just there as moral support. The program was to have semi-big 1600m races, but on Saturday, no one wanted to race against Arwen and so the initial race was canceled. Instead, she raced a 1300m, where she came second just behind the leading horse. You should have seen the look on YB's face when he brought her in. I don't know any horse who will come second (isn't she always the constant second...?) and make her jockey be just as proud as if he won. But she makes them happy - probably because she always gives her best (and she's the only horse apart from Sahara who runs without a whip). The crowd loves her too. It doesn't matter how she performs, because in their eyes, she's the best. If she performs well, they say that she hardly even made en effort (=that she has so much more to give, you've seen nothing yet!) and if she fails in something, they make excuses for her (she wasn't feeling well, or she had worked to hard, or it wasn't her distance etc). She is so overestimated that her real competitors - the ones who are at the same level as her and whom she should be racing against - aren't allowed to compete against her. Instead she has to race against the really good horses who have far more experience than her, and of course, she can't live up to it.

Saturday was an interesting day. The 1600m race was canceled and she came second to one the Gold Man's horse in the 1300m race - and still the crowd treated her as if she had won.

A custom's officer came up to her and watched her with hunger in his eyes. The Snow Man introduced me as Arwen's owner, but he just looked past me, I wasn't even there. Instead he returned his gaze to my little bush mare and you could just see how he was already making future plans for her. I was told later that he wanted to buy her, and the other horse owners asked me for my price.
"She's not for sale," I said.
"Oh but you must have a price!" Everything in Niger can be bought for money, or so the rich believe.
I thought for a while, and then said, "No, I don't. Even if someone came and offered 2 million CFAs for her, I still wouldn't sell her."
At home later, my Dad thought I should set a price. "Just set a price that is ridiculously high and you'll get them thinking."
"Yes," I said, "I could do that, I could say five or ten millions and everyone would stop bringing up the issue, but the Gold Man might actually be crazy enough to show up at my gate with that kind of money just because he wants her so badly! And then I would have to be true to my word and sell her and that's just not happening!"
He still thought I should sell her and make money on her reputation (I don't know any horse that is as over-estimated as Arwen - it doesn't matter if she makes it or fails, they always see the "miracle" in what she does...) but I'm not setting a price on her head. She's a faithful horse and I couldn't find a better mount even if I looked around the whole world. And people need to learn in this country that some things just can't be bought with money. Go find your own Arwen! There are plenty of them in the bush!

Apart from that, the weekend was sad. I'm tired of the race track community right now, but I haven't really figured out why. When I went there last year, I was naive and full of inspiration. I met a lot of people that I enjoyed talking to and I made many friends (or should I say good acquaintances?). Today, the attitude is different. I have my friends, my small entourage, and I have cut away from the Gold Man as I cannot stand his owning attitude, even towards me. I may be female but I am used to being respected, even in this country, and I don't want other males to "take care of me". Nor to tell me what to do or not to do with my mares.
So the track is now divided in two camps, and the Gold Man is playing the champ just as if we were still in kindergarten. It would be funny if it wasn't so tragic, because the rich (whether they really are rich or just act rich) control the poor so easily.

It's a man's club, as I have figured out. I'm the only female and lately, I had been wondering whether they didn't want to talk to me because I was a woman - but the Snow Man informed me that they're just sour because of Arwen. Oh well, that will pass as her true colours come forth and her gradiose reputation takes a slight fall. :-)
Concerning being a female however, I had an interesting conversation with my jockey. I asked him if his wife had ever seen him race, and he said: "Habba, no way!!"
I asked him why, and he said: "There are no women at the race track."
"But I am here," I said.
"Yes, Ishtar, but you are not a woman! You are a horse-owner!" Lol, so much for being put in a category... :-)

Either way, I did meet some nice people - nice sincere people (most probably not horse owners themselves!) - and at the end of the day, I did enjoy myself. But that was Saturday, and the worst was yet to come...

Ishtar

Blessed!

I can't explain it, but just like some days will feel wrong, some days just feel so right. Today is one of those days when I am just filled with thankfulness for all the things that I have and I feel blessed.

I am thankful that today is a good day and that I am full of inspiration.
I am thankful that I have a mission and a sense of meaning with my life.
I am thankful that my work gives me satisfaction.
I am thankful that I have options in life in contrast to so many people around me. I do not have a lot of material wealth (I only have two horses!) but I have enough money to support myself and I am free to make my own choices, which many people here (both men and women) aren't.
I am thankful of my health, which, despite some defaults (especially linked to the accident last year) is more than many people have and which allows me to enjoy so much.
I am thankful for my family, my friends and all my nice acquaintances that make my life so much richer!
And last but not least, I am thankful that I go to bed sleepy at night. It's such a treat, you wouldn't how happy I am about that! I hope it lasts for many more weeks to come!

Still smiling!
Ishtar

Hurray!

Today was a good day! I put on five washes, fixed the guest room for our visitor who is arriving tomorrow, cooked two meals (one for today and one for the solar oven tomorrow), finished unpacking some of the trickier things that my mother had sent with my father, reorganized the fridges, took care of Tabita for an hour, fixed a delightful supper (not often I am impressed by my own creations but these simple sandwiches were great!) and best of all, took out both horses in less than 70 minutes and managed to bring them back drenched in their own sweat!

Needless to say, I was feeling better today and made up for some of the days I lost due to my virus... Ah... some days are just so good!!!

Ishtar

Advice from the Nigerien race track

I finally took a picture of the Nigerien way on how to keep your race horse in perfect shape!

Instructions: Stick a needle into its throat and let the blood flow into the sand. When the pool is big enough, exit the needle. Your horse is now "purified" and should not be worked hard for a few days. Repeat this procedure every second month, or the racehorse (because of the all the "rich" food it is getting) will produce too much blood, which will accumulate in the legs and lead to bloated feet. If you do not do this regularly - your horse will die. As we have all seen has happened with Arwen....
They: "No but Arwen is a very special mare, Ishtar. She is a pure arab!"
Me: Oh, my little Berber bush mare is now a pure arab? Interesting!
They: "Only Arwen can go without treatment, but if it was one of our horses... It just wouldn't be possible."
Me: "Do you know what function the blood has?"
They: "No."
Me: "It's like a road that brings the food you eat to the muscles so that they can work properly. If you have a tyre explosion on your way to Niamey and as a 'remedy', you remove part of the road, do you think your car will drive better or worse?"
They: ...

Although the race track sand is regularly littered by stallion blood, some people have stopped with this practice. When you speak in parables, people stop to listen, but in the end it's all down to what they see. I read a Hausa proverb today when I was studying:
Gani ya fi jî - Seeing is Better than Hearing. It's just like the trees at the field station. Before they actually saw that they could grow, they did not believe that man could sow trees - only God did that. And before they saw Arwen "surviving" at the track, they did not believe that a horse could be trained without being released of its own blood. Nor did they believe that mares could race, but that does not seem to be a common belief anymore.

I spoke to another horse owner and asked him why he didn't train his horses together with Arwen.
"Because yours would win!" he said. "I don't want to lose my money!"
"So let's do it just for the fun of it," I said.
"Why would you want to do that? You already know that Arwen will win!"
"I don't know that. She's a horse just like all the others, she has good days and bad days. Have you seen her win lately?"
"No, but lap times don't lie. She's the best horse, that's it."
So... Rumor has it that my mare is the best race horse in town but no one wants to find out, so I'll just have to keep letting her train by herself and hope that Sahara will catch up one day. Then they can spend the rest of their lives racing together, which is another "impossibility" in this country. Two horses from the same grounds racing together?
"Are you crazy? They would kill each other!"
But then seeing Arwen and Sahara lick each other after training, they just shrug their shoulders and say, "Oh, but they are mares."
Of course. Was it Arab mares brought down by some nice sultan etc...? And by the way, what magical potion am I actually feeding them? I have been asked that twice this year, and the year is still young...

Ishtar

Sick again!

Some people have been wondering what I have been doing lately. Well, for the past ten days, I've been sick with a virus, and have been spending most of my days in bed! Last Saturday, I had such a migraine that I couldn't put things together in my head anymore. I couldn't count from 11-20 (I knew the words but they didn't make any sense), didn't know what a guava was (only vaguely recognizing the word without being able to associate it with anything) and couldn't say the word fever, although I still knew how to spell it. It was a very bizarre condition, but thankfully, it only lasted as long as the migraine did and does not seem to have done any permanent damage... ;-)

I am now doing better (as you can see from this beautiful picture I took this siesta!) although my head is still very heavy and the fever has been exchanged for my good old dizziness... Currently, my father is sick (seems to be the same virus) and one of our workers also had a fever this morning, so it seems to be something that spreads... Just hope I'll be up and running soon. I'm running out of patience and good books!

Ishtar

No water

When I checked this afternoon, we still had no water. This the fourth day now, but fortunately the water came back two days ago, so that we had time to fill the water tower (which means that this time, I am not entirely without water - I can do the dishes without carrying buckets from elsewhere and do not have to invite myself over to others in order to take a shower). Unfortunately, the water tower had a leak which means that yesterday, it was only 1/3 full and today, there should be even less. You'd be amazed at how easily you take things for granted. You take for granted that there is clean water in your tap. You take for granted that you can take a shower as soon as you feel uncomfortably hot - even though you might not always do it, you treasure the possibility to do so. You take for granted that you can wash your dishes immediately after use - not having to choose between washing up with dirty water or not washing up at all. And you take for granted that you have enough water for the washing machine - not that it suddenly stops because there wasn't enough water, and you are left to dry dirty clothes. However, you'd also be surprised at how possible it is to live a different life, and not use so much water. Six years ago, I had one of the most amazing experiences of my life when I followed Aïssa on a week-long trip to the bush, where we stayed with her nomad Bororo family.

The camp consisting of one man, his two wives, a few of his twelve grown-up children (with his first wife) with their respective families and his younger children as well; civilization in the middle of the nowhere. The sun was scorching hot and from nine am to five pm, there was no activity other than socializing, drinking tea and moving the mats around the tree in order to stay in the shade. With such a long siesta-period, you don't need much sleep. We went to bed after midnight and got up at six o'clock, the best period of the day.

We rode camels, horses and donkeys during our stay. The horses were my favorite, but the American Peacecorps volunteer who was staying with the family at that time fell off and from then on, I rode alone. The landscape was the same and navigating was tricky, but I wasn't worried because I went riding before they had had their morning drink, and so when it was time to go back home, I just gave the young stallion free reins and he headed straight for the well.

The most amazing thing that I did during this timeless adventure did not have anything to with animals or riding, but with water. After a few days, you started to feel sticky all over. This was when Aïssa brought me a large empty bucket and a smaller one, containing one liter of water. With this one liter of water, I walked away in the dark and found a secluded place far away from camp to be alone but not so far that I wouldn't find my way back again. Then in the moonlight, I showered with that one liter of water, and I cannot describe what a luxury that felt like! Surprisingly, the water was amply sufficient and I even showered my hair! I have never felt, neither before nor after, any shower give me such sense of satisfaction, nor has one never made me feel so immensely clean! That episode really marked me, and nowadays, when I find myself in a tight water situation, I just remind myself that one liter is enough and if you're not comfortable, just lower your expectations and you'd be surprised at how satisfied you'll be!

Ishtar

Hasty journey to the field station

Today, I went on "mission" to Dalli (Tanout) to get some footage of the environmental changes that have occurred at the field station, since the project's arrival in 1987. It was a fun job but a challenge because how do you capture live footage of something that isn't moving? I'll let you know in some time if the footage was used for its intended purpose!

The field station has certainly changed over the years! It used to be a barren field.

Just looking at the contrast between the field station and its neighboring fields, and you get a sense of what the field station looked like from the start (though much worse). Trees are important, but establishing them is no hasty business.

The greatest challenge however was keeping my balance on the roof top of the car. You wouldn't believe how strong the winds are! However, after three hours I had acquired about one hour of footage and was satisfied. After two hours in a warm car, we came home to no water (this was the second day), but I walked over to my cousins to have a shower and a cup of coffee (I needed that after all that exhausting heat!) before taking Thomas out for a riding lesson. A full day, in other words!

Isthar