MARCH 3, 2007

Today we will ride a long day, and relocate to a camp outside the fortress. The camp is actually quite close to the fort so the next morning we can begin at dawn and return to the fort before the hijinks of Holi begin. Since part of Holi involves throwing firecrackers, it makes sense to get the horses back to the stables as early as possible.

This is a great day of riding, and I absolutely adore Ujju (her name means “bright”). Her gaits are so much smoother, she doesn’t insist on ramming her nose up every other horse’s ass, and she responds to the bridle. I wish there was more cantering. We have all grown more confident, and those of us on new horses are all much happier with the exchange. Great sweeping hills and more crop areas surround us. Several people are sick—we’ve been passing a flu around since, from one day to the next while camping we never had the same pillowcases or towels, and nothing is washed. Curtis and Charlene had staid in bed yesterday but are riding today. We all take a break in shade in a village square to observe some architecture and elaborately painted buildings, noticing the clockwise swastika symbols everywhere. We are so trained to see the swastika as a sign of evil, but when the arms go clockwise, it is the Hindi symbol for the universe (so to in Native American symbology). As we were stopped for a longish spell, Charlene’s horse thought we must be done for the day and rolled onto the cobblestones with her still in the saddle. It happened once or twice before to other riders—the horses are encouraged to roll after sweaty rides as a method of cooling off in the desert—the dust, as any elephant will tell you, cools and helps sweat evaporate. Charlene already had some knee issues, so a horse rolling onto her didn’t help, and she finishes off the day in the jeep.

I can’t quite figure out why camels growl. It is the low, threatening, guttural growl of a large predatory cat. Is it because they are threatened by the horses? Certainly Manisha, and later, Ujju, get a little dance-y when we come upon them. Ujju, in fact, prances a little sidestep at every blind corner in a village as we round high walls. What does she know that I don’t? A charging quartet of sheep with cobblestone clattering cloven hooves spooks her into a few paces of jangly running before we both exhale, and, I like to think, laugh at ourselves. Stupid sheep. Maybe that’s the camel attitude as well. “Stupid horses—I’ll growl and wag my prodigious lip at them, baring my teeth—that’ll show ‘em. Check out these big brown teeth, little horsey. Ain’t nobody stuck a metal bit in MY mouth to lead me around, like some idiotic equines I know. Ha. Bit bitch!”
With all of her wisdom, Ujju lowers her heavy lids and mutters, “Whose got the ring in his nose so that guy can yank you around like a puppet, you one-humped mess?”

Lunch is at a shrine-like water well with green fields all around and a decent amount of shade. I keep saying I wont nap at lunch, but since we take a few hours to let the heat of the day pass, I always drift off and my energy drains out like air from a slow leaking balloon. Women in impossibly bright saris and veils carry enormous bundles of picked green crops on their heads. We see so much of this, as women balance huge loads of laundry or bundles of sticks on their heads appearing far too delicate to ever support the load. A camel we passed was pulling a wooden plow, digging furrows in an arid field. A mother and her small children pass us with a donkey cart the size of an SUV…the dinky donkey seems no larger than my German Shepherd at home.

After the long day we get to camp and enjoy sunset tea amid a few trees as a full moon is already making its way into the sky over the tied up horses. Tonight will be our last camp night, so it is the staff party to fete the boys and buy them many, many drinks—they are truly amazing and work so hard under such adverse circumstances.
Our campfire tonight turns into a singing, dancing, drum circle. The boys eventually coax us up a few at a time to dance and writhe around the fire with them. My back has been killing me lately, but I swivel and hip-thrust as best I can. I will miss these guys so much, and we all begin to wrap our heads around the fact that our time here is finite.

This is also the first night of Holi, the Festival of Colors. Tomorrow is the drunken, aggressive, color-throwing Bacchanalian free-for-all. Here in our little camp we can hear fireworks and celebratory gunfire from at least three different directions, and a distant village we can hear but not see is bursting with chanting and song. It is an amazing experience.

Holi comes from “Holika,” the bad sister in folklore who is impervious to fire with her magic cloak. She tries to kill her good nephew by taking him into the fire, but the cloak falls from her shoulders and covers him so he is saved and she perishes. Holi commemorates the triumph of good over evil and a day when your sins are burned away in the fire. The story is much more elaborate, and told differently by each person we hear, but is fascinating. I’m unclear where the color thing comes in, but I know that colored powders and sometimes liquid are thrown at people all day making an incredible mess and drunken pastiche of tinted dust. Bonnie wants us back safely at the fort so we’re not accosted. Most of us, of course, want to participate. We’ll see how it goes, and fall asleep to the moon as bright as daylight and explosions of celebration.