The Riding Lesson

I traveled 3 hours on public and stayed two nights in Leribe to teach Donna, our volunteer coordinator a bit of a riding lesson. She has rented a horse by the month, but is a complete novice and the owners of the horse don’t speak English. It was great to see the HL gang and go out for a meal, but the place we stayed was mosquito infested and the trip was spoiled by two torturous nights awake dealing with hundreds of swarming persistent mosquitoes. I am covered with angry bites that I am obviously having an allergic reaction to, and must say I have never been so miserable or itchy with bites. A new variety of mosquito, I suppose, but I look like I have scabies.

We drove to the farmers for the lesson and found the horses were not all there. His wife invited us into the house to wait. With its tin roof it was well over 30 degrees inside and we sat patiently to be polite, with the flies, until we were all dripping. We emerged to find the poor looking horses back and being tacked up for us. The tack was also very poor with broken saddles and elastic reins and stirrup leathers. It was all very much borderline for safety. I was so glad to be there as they could not speak English and Donna has little Sesotho, so no help was forthcoming. The stirrups were far too short when she got on and it was obvious they were to be left that way. I jumped off and changed them. Also the horse I had was quiet and hers very up, so I recommended to her she start by leasing mine for a month or two! I continued to be a pain to them, I am sure, as they tried to take us across the busy highway and I insisted we turn around and continue through the fields. Eventually, we had a nice hack and she learned to turn and stop. No pictures were allowed of me, suffice to say !