Subject: Re: [RC] Does
anyone know anything about the state of the Arabian horse in the War
Zone`s
Much of what you describe is the way
many of our pioneers lived, pre-transcontinental railroad. When our
people migrated from the east to the west in the 19th century, they used
(American) "buffalo chips", and it was the women who went out, sometimes
with a wooden wheelbarrow, to gather them. After all, they are
compressed, dried, grass and they ought to burn all right. Maybe
more like smolder? But I would guess they put out good heat.
I've never tried it, to tell the truth. We have cattle, maybe I
should experiment sometime and see for myself.
Subject: Re: [RC] Does anyone know
anything about the state of the Arabian horse in the War Zone`s
This makes all the sense in the world and if you saw the
way these people live, you would understand. In fact, in many cases
their animals get better care than the family do.....but honestly, that
isn't saying much. Most farmers live in bare houses of brick or mudbrick
with (if they are lucky) bare concrete floors. These "houses" consist of
maybe 3 rooms for a family of ??? They do their cooking on something
that you would recognise as a camp stove. There is no kitchen. The stove
must be run with gas (comes in battered steel cylinders) which must be
purchased with money. So a lot of the cooking is done outdoors on a
homemade oven that is heated with dry waterbuffalo manure
patties....guess who gets to make these. What money they get from their
crops usually has to go to school supplies for kids, cloth for clothing
(homemade of course), shoes, seed and so on. The family and the animals
get to eat whatever is grown on the farm.. Most farmers keep a
waterbuffalo and/or goats and sheep or a cow for milk and cheese, which
they make themselves. Most of them do not have refrigerators.
Electricity costs money. Refrigerators are expensive and the electricity
in the countryside is erratic to say the least.
The farm houses
have cotton mattresses and may have benches built in along the walls
made from brick or mud brick. No fans, no air conditioning no running
water (they have access to clean well water from a hand pump...rich
people like me have electric pumps.) Needless to say, no washing
machines as well. The horses and the farmers as well would do with a
little shade sometimes but when you have to haul produce to market on a
wood wagon, there is no shade for anyone, no cushion to sit on, nothing.
The wagons always carry food for the horses and water is available
almost everywhere for animals. Food and water for people is not so
easy.
I have almost come to blows with people who mistreat their
animals, but the majority of the farmers are working in the complete
dark of illiteracy and ignorance and are doing their best. It just isn't
very good...not for the animals, not for themselves, not for their
children. Despite the fact that they essentially live in a different
century from me, most of them are basically very decent, polite
people.
Maryanne Cairo, Egypt On Tuesday, Mar 25, 2003, at
12:05 Africa/Cairo, Gabi (Ra'anana Farm) wrote:
That has always been
a question to me...
If
their livelihood so much depend on their working horse, he would
surely work harder and live longer if he could just get a little shade
sometimes and a little more to drink more often, and a little old rag
to pad under the ill-fitting
harness...
____________________________________________________ IncrediMail - Email has finally evolved -
Click
Here
