Help Happy Horses
Published: 2016-09-06
Translation
This is a translation of a Bulgarian-language post. It conveys the content faithfully but is not the author's original English writing.
The other day our jeep burned down. Our own one, the red one. The same one we used to transport the horses in the horse trailer, and the bale platform. Or with the timber. The one with which, year after year, we hauled all sorts of things — from sacks of our spelt harvest to the husking mill and the grinding mill, and feed for the animals from the fodder stores; to 50 crates of fresh raspberries from the field to the "Raspberry Workshop", and then the finished raspberry products to the farmers' markets, or the festivals. We piled five or six workers in, whether for picking, weeding or digging, and drove them at dawn from the hamlet to the raspberry field, and when it rained or at the end of the day we dropped them back at their homes. With it we pulled people out of mud and snowdrifts dozens of times… and just as often got stuck ourselves in the middle of the fields, and had to be pulled out too. We rolled our spelt and oat sowings with it, with two tractor tyres tied behind, and for years we hitched the hay rake to it and turned the hay for the horses, then gathered it into windrows. We chased runaway horses, escorted the herd from the Turkish quarter through all of Pavel Banya, all the way to us. Hundreds of times we crossed the Tundzha with it, to the farm and back; and in the hottest hours, during the summer camps, we pulled the cart full of children along the country roads to the cool waters of the Tundzha. We slept in it on some headland above the sea, or at festivals; we towed friends' caravans to and from the seaside campsites… we overheated it on the hills… we even pulled a colleague's dead horse out of the Black Sea! We loaded the surfboards on top when the Meltemi wind came and sped off to the southern spots, packed to the roof, together with the five children and the luggage…
Well, that same jeep, that old comrade and constant helper along our way, the other day, in the middle of the village of Zheleznitsa, burned right down to nothing! While Kole was driving up a hill, something flared up under the bonnet, and at risk to himself and the children he managed to get it 300 metres further up to the fountain on level ground, instead of stopping on the slope and leaving that three-tonne torch rolling uncontrollably down the hill to plough into the holiday Vitosha traffic. Alas! Only to be met with the indifference, the apathy, the carelessness, the inadequacy and the blank stares of the passers-by he first asked for help — a fire extinguisher. It turned out that not one of the stopped cars had one. "But mate, I'll buy one this very day!" And even the grocery shop opposite refused to lend him their bucket pump. Then, trying to block the traffic from both sides at once, because: "Can't you see?! Tyres are bursting, gas bottles, glass flying!" — meaning: "LIFE-THREATENING!!!" — he realised that once the herd bolts… there is no stopping it.
Of course around the Zheleznitsa fountain there were also a few "angels", as he called them, adequate enough that, amid all the madness, they got our children out of the car, together with our sick Pippi, even lent a fire extinguisher, or — when they realised how late it already was for the jeep — helped in the desperate attempts to divert the traffic away from the looming danger.
(We hope that, through your sharing, we will reach these angels and thank them most warmly. That is exactly what the network is for!)
What is interesting is that the very same evening, photos of the burning car were already online, posted by the very same people for whom it had been so important to drive past at the risk of their own lives and those of their passengers — the poor things still managed to snap a quick photo on their smartphones and post it! (No, the network is not for that.)
But those same herd-people, God forbid, if some real disaster were to strike, would probably trample over children and women to save their own skins…
I write this with the absolute certainty that there are no such people among my friends. I know that you are the kind of people who will lend a hand to someone in need, and I know you have done it more than once. It is not easy for a person to turn to others for help, but now that "someone" happens to be me and my family.
As most of you know, this year we undertook a total change: we moved our horse family and the bare essentials to a new place and literally started from scratch. We moved our work too, and it, as always, is connected to our love of clean Nature, animals and sport, and it is in the service of the youngest ones. Our project on Vitosha is entirely oriented toward children and teenagers and aims for them to build a bond with Nature and animals, as an alternative to their urban everyday life — something vitally necessary for the balance of their mental and physical health.
But first we face a winter on a mountain slope at 1,100 m altitude, and without the jeep it will be very hard for us to carry on. Quite literally, the safety and the life of our family and our herd depend on a reliable, high-clearance vehicle. Our dome has been up for sale for seven months now; we are also selling our carriage (by sharing this post you will help us reach more people, potential buyers). Despite all the above, we have not lost heart — we believe in the good in people, and we are sure that with shared effort everything is possible. That is why we decided to start this fundraising campaign, fully aware that in this difficult moment we are not alone. Even a few coins set aside will be of enormous help — you know the saying: "Drop by drop — a pool!"
By supporting us in this difficult moment, each with whatever they can spare, and by sharing our request for help, you help not only the work of one family that has chosen to live in Nature in the service of horses and children, but also many people who have lost faith in the good in humankind — and yourselves too, because you will "be the change you wish to see in the world"!
With the most sincere thanks, and with wishes for you to be happy:
Svilena, Nikola, the children and the happy horses!