Sadie's Battle with THE HORSE

Hello everyone! A thousand apologies for the long delay. Sadie started working, we went to India, and basically we have both been in the throes of what we hope were the final stages of culture shock (yes, I can now say I am relatively unfazed by the bad traffic and horrible customer service. I don't even stop for pedestrians or say thank you anymore).

But we have had some adventures and a lot of mundane working--Harry on some pissing off piddly litigation issues and Sadie on a pile of fricken complicated financial docs. Obviously, the adventures will be of more interest to all of you.....

Our current stockpile of tales to tell all emerge from our struggle with adjusting to this place. After a few months we were really sick of the racism (especially for Indians), the prostitutes in our neighborhood, the rattling in our brand-new not cheap car that the service guys said was Sadie's imagination (NOT--they were not used to women who know cars....), and in general the meaningless lifestyle of self-indulgence that many expats fall victim to. Not to mention that it is profoundly depressing to have a combined income of more than you ever had before and still walk around the malls unable to afford anything.......(its all either crap priced really high, or luxury brands priced even higher!--I can't even tell you how difficult it is to find a nice ladies suit.....).

So we decided to get proactive. Rather than wallow in our misery, we would learn everything we could about this place, including arabic, and have a meaningful experience regardless of the negatives. So we went to the book store, read up on the history, and started exploring parts of the city. Which brought us to.....

The horses. This region is culturally rich, although it is not readily apparant as in some countries. One beautiful example of the heritage here is the importance of horses. Arabian horses are famous worldwide for their beauty, speed, and now we have come to understand, completely head strong and emotional attitudes.

We came across the polo club in Dobby by accident. Normally Iwould never have stepped near something called a polo club, and Harry was more interested in other things at first. But a friend invited me for a desert ride, and cluelessly I agreed.

Now I used to take riding lessons, and have been on many "trail rides" on nice chubby American horses. But always in a western-style saddle. This desert ride was NOT on a cushy wide saddle with a slightly fat hourse looking for its next snack in the bushes. No way. This ride was on Arabian horses trained for endurance races by the local bedouin endurance racing champion cum ride leader/teacher on a miniscule thing they call an English saddle and really short reigns.

What could I say but OH F*&^% once I realized what was about to happen to me.......

And happen it did.....those horses took off at a fast canter, with me bouncing around on the tiny saddle, and mine would not stop (partially because I was giving it western-riding cues and not proper non-western riding cues). We ended up in a battle of wills, the horse and I, that we both basically lost when my horse turned around to head for the stables 5 kms out in the desert, and the trail leader chased us down, grabbed the reigns, and spent the next hour holding me and the horse right next to him on his horse. The horse stayed mad at me however and tried to mess around every time the guide turned his head, despite having her reigns held tightly by him. I swear she was f**&^^%&-ing with my head.

How embarassing. But also enlightening. In that two hour period I realized that the something missing here was finally found. Despite such a harrowing experience, I signed up for riding lessons right away. And so did Harry, who happens to be a complete natural with these Arabians. And it is one thing in Dobby that is actually affordable.

So now we go every weekend for our lessons and desert rides, and slowly we are improving. Harry by leaps and bounds, and me a bit more slowly, as I seem to have a battle of wills with every horse -- the last one threw me off into the mud on purpose, which resulted in our trail leader/teacher/new friend the local bedouin having a screaming match with her in horse language. I was brave though, I got right back on and disciplined her the rest of the ride (i.e. only allowed her to walk slowly), earning me a nod of approval from our teacher.

And yes, we hang out at a polo club, which has a lovely garden pub with outdoor seating overlooking the jumping paddock. But it is cool, there is a huge variety of patrons, of all nationalities (not just snobby whities), the beer is cheap, and the whole atmosphere is peaceful and rejuvenating--some thing very important for life out here.