Re: [RC] Does anyone know anything about the state of the Arabian horse in the War Zone`s - Barbara McCrary
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...
