Horses

It's a gray Saturday morning. 6:30 am and a cool breeze is blowing in a cloudy sky bringing out the deepness of the green starting to push up through the desert soil. The transformation of desert into lush grasslands has begun with the first rains. Stefan and I are going for a ride. Pepper and Bob are standing near the stables but Libby is nowhere to be found. I search the compound and finally find her standing under a tree staring blankly through the chain link fence across the soccer field into the horizon. I grab her halter. She resists briefly with her head pulled back before resigning herself to her fate.

I tie Bob up to the tree right outside the stables and grab the new, synthetic saddle someone just gave Sarah and cinch it up as tight as I can across Bob's ever increasing girth. He's getting so strong I'll use the bit today. I slide the beautifully worked leather and silver harness and bit into his mouth and squeeze it over his ears and attach it under his chin. I attach the saddle bags over Libby's rump and fill it with water bottles, and a French Bible and Nangere songbook. I place my left purpose into Bob's stirrup and swing up and into place.

We saunter up to the gate and out into the street. Most people are just waking up huddled around smoky leaf fires warming themselves up after a long "cold" night. Some are gathered around a pot of bouillie anticipating the temporary assuaging of the ever present hunger of the end of the dry season. We cross Bere and approach Bendele. Gary and Wendy's empty house stares at us from the left, it's gate locked with a padlock and it's windows barred. A heavy silence reigns.

A few meters up Noel's children wave and flash huge grins as they shout out the obligatory "lapia! James-uh! Stef-ahn!

Passing Noel's house takes us out of the village into the bush. The main road is packed with a steady procession of people on their way to market. Women in brightly colored wraps saunter along their arms swinging in rhyme keeping in balance on their heads the large basins filled with sweet potatoes, sugar, millet, rice, corn, bean leaves and other marketable items. An ox cart plods slowly by loaded with sacks of grain, a few young kids piled on top and one lazily sitting across the pulling bar with a stick in hand to swat the two long-horned cows into the right direction. More women pass, long piles of twisted sticks cut into six feet lengths, tied and bundled onto their heads. Old and young mix in a never ending procession heading for the biggest event of the week, the Bere market.

Further up, we enter a small village where some of the travelers have stopped under a mango tree gathering around a large pot of freshly prepared rice wine to fill their bellies for the exhausting trip to Bere on foot and to prepare themselves for the social scene and eventually a staggering stumble home, dead drunk. They wave wildly their faces lighting up with white, toothy grins as we pass and call out our greetings.

I've switched to Libbly now, as Stefan was having some troubles controlling her. We've been trotting for a while when an open stretch of road heading to Dabague opens up before us. I give a cluck and a kick with my heels and Libby is off on a fast gallop. She's our newest addition to the stables and like Pepper and Bob came to us at a good price thanks to her malnourishment. When Sarah walked her back from the Arab village where we bought her, she could barely do 5 kilometers at a slow walk. Now that she's put on some weight and become one of the friendliest horses around I want to see if she can run and if she's at all competitive.

I'm in front for a while before Bob catches up and barely passes us. Libby picks up speed a little but seems content to stay with Bob and not pass him. Alternately walking, trotting and galloping the 18 kilometers to Delbian pass quickly accompanied by a thousand "Lapias" and "As-salaam alekums".

We tie up Libby and Bob near some grass while a short man with a limp brings a bucket, fills it at the local water pump and gives the horses a much needed drink. We take off the saddle bags and saddles and hang them over mango tree branches out of the reach of curious little hands. I get to tell the story of David and Goliath to a group of kids where practically every other boy his carrying his own sling and sheep are grazing in the background. The story of a shepherd boy killing a giant with a stone and sling has never seemed more real.

I then am told by Noel that I'll be preaching so I pull out of my past the sermon I borrowed from the Pineapple Story guy about God loving impossibilities in using Gideon and 300 men to fight off an army of 135,000; Elijah taking on 400 prophets of Baal on a mountain and God burning up the wet wood, bull, stone and earth with fire from the sky; and Daniel's three friends being saved from a fiery furnace heated up seven times hotter.

In a surprising lack of African hospitality, Stefan and I are allowed to escape the usually obligatory millet paste and slime sauce meal and head back to Bere. Just outside of Dabegue, we come across three young boys bareback on tiny ponies herding cattle. As we trot past, one of them turns and starts running alongside heading towards the road. He wants to race! I cluck loudly and give a big kick to Libby's flanks and she almost shoots out from under me as she pushes to catch the pony. Within seconds we pull even and leave the surprisingly fast pony in the dust. Entering Dabegue we tear around puddles of water, under trees and around people scampering to get out of the way. I'd seen Stefan gunning Bob and was sure he'd catch us by now. I quickly over my shoulder and he's nowhere to be found. A commanding "whoa", a sharp pull on the reins and a lean back with all my force and Libby stops dead in her tracks.

Stefan finally catches up explaining that he lost his hat as Bob sprung forward to enter the race. We continue trotting and walking until we are about 5 kilometers from Bere.

"Let's race Bob and Libby. I want to really see what she can do. See that tree to the left just beyond that puddle? It'll be a walk up start. As soon as we enter the shadow of the tree, the race starts."

I feel my heart beat pick up as the tree approaches and we try to keep the horses even. It's a slow walk up. We're only a few feet away. The horses start to sense our excitement...and...we're there. Libby seems to have been expecting it as she rockets forward almost pulling my feet out of the stirrups. I'm holding on for dear life. We're ahead! I then see Bob cut around a little to the left where a side path goes around some bushes. He's picking up speed. At the same time I feel Libby fading, she's just not in shape and running out of energy. Bob leaves us way behind as we continue a slow gallop to the entrance to Bere and do a cool-down walk the rest of the way home.

As i finally pull myself out of the saddle, I can't believe how tired I am. I'm so wobbly I cna barely stay a foot. I'm covered with sweat and fine dust. The horses slurp up bucketfuls of water and then go for a roll as soon as their saddles are off. I take a quick shower and fall into a deep sleep before being awakened shortly by the nurse on duty.

"There's a woman with high blood pressure and seizures. She's seven months pregnant. The cervix is completely dilated."

I give some instructions and go back down to lay down, but then think better of it and get up, put on scrubs and head to the hospital.

The woman is thrashing around on the bed moaning and whining. The cervix is only at three centimeters. We start an oxytocin drip to give her better contractions and I go to see some other patients. The nurse runs to get me.

"She's having a crisis again!"

I enter the labor and delivery room. The husband is at the bed side and the woman is hysterical. It's not a seizure, though, and she quickly calms down when the husband leaves. I order some pain medication and then she has a grand mal seizure. We hurry her to the OR. Luckily Simeon is there and Samedi lives right next door. The woman is combative and agitated and difficult to get on the OR table. We tie her arms and legs down good, prep the abdomen, scrub and gown and drape.

We pray and Simeon gives one milliliter of Ketamine and I slice down to fascia, rip the fascia and muscles open, lift up a bladder flap, slice into the uterus, poke into the amniotic sac and squeeze out a full term baby boy who after a little rubbing and slapping starts to give a healthy cry. I suture up the uterus and skin and head home to finally rest.

James