Birth of a New International Day ;)

09 - Nov - 2008

Everything began from the idea of celebrating my birthday with the horses, in Ushi. Then Borya and I decided to invite not only friends but as many people as possible so that more and more people would learn about our riding club and activity. We called it “Day of Harmony of Human with Horse and Nature”, composed an invitation letter and sent it to friends with request to forward it to their friends and friends’ friends. In the end our invitation letter made a big circle and came back to us from “Bnatachar” hiking cluber Apres Zohrabyan who invited us to celebrate “INTERNATIONAL!!! Day of Harmony of Human with Horse and Nature” ...

And then what was left to us was to arrange buses for innumerous guests, as well as several journalists from different mass media (although we did not invite a single one) who wanted to participate in that extraordinary “International day”.

On November 9 we had over 150 guests. Weather was perfect, vegetarian food was lying on the table, fruit compote was boiling on the electrical stove, and sangria (wine with fruits) was made a day before with the help of the village children.

We had guests of different ages, nationalities and preferences. Some knew about our activity for others it was something new. The village has not seen such a big crowd since time immemorial. So all the villagers got dressed up, wore their best taper shoes and gathered around the manage creating a live fencing instead of one of wood to be built yet. It looked very picturesque.

For horses it was a lavish feast since people brought kilos of carrots, apples and sugar for them. Golden was “serving” everybody who wanted to ride. He behaved so well within few hours that got additional two kilos of carrots.

Our little patients from Kharberd State Orphanage for children with special needs met the guests, told them about hippotherapy and the impact of horses on them. In the end of the event along with the village kids they painted their impressions with gouache.

When according to tradition it started raining pretty heavily (it rains every November 9) it did not scare or embarrass anybody; people went on riding Golden, walking in the fields, having fun in the rain. Soon the rain stopped. We made a fire and a dance group from “Bnatachar” hiking club performed Armenian traditional dances around the fire, as well as gave quick lessons to everyone who wished.

Next to our pink trailer we put a pink donation box where everyone could put money for hippotherapy needs. With the sum collected we bought fodder for the horses. The journalists present at the event made wonderful articles which helped inform more and more people on hippotherapy in Armenia. And after all after the event Centaur got many new friends!