A Horse, A Horse, My Kingdom for a Horse?

So, I was sitting in my horseroom in front of the computer editing blogposts when I heard a strange sound.  I swore I heard a horse.  But I’d never heard one before, so I must have imagined it.  A short while later, I thought I heard a horse neighing again.

I got up and went into the pottery laboratory, which is just across from my room. I asked if anyone had heard a horse.  They all said no.  But then Martha Risser said, well, you know all the horse carts go by on that side street.  So I assumed a few horses had gone by. 

A few hours later I emerged from my room and they told me it is horse inoculation day today and all the horses in Akko are coming to the street outside our school for free inoculation.  I wasn’t crazy and I wasn’t imagining anything.

I went down to the end of the hall where there is an outdoor stairway and, sure enough, there are horses, lots of them.  Big black and whites, big browns and a few really pretty palominos.  These horses come in all sizes and pull anything from small carts to large vehicles.
general horse images
None of them are happy because there are males and females mixed together and they are making a noisy, horsey racket.  It seems absurd in this modern city to see all the horses, but they are still widely used.  Their drivers no doubt carry cell phones and go to internet cafes.

And as far as I can hear, all the owners are Arab.  So, in the midst of what everyone outside Israel thinks is a rapidly deteriorating situation and a hostile, dangerous place, horse owners are bringing their horses so a vet can give them shots and look them over, for free, as a benefit of the city.  Life goes on.

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