Stories from the Amazon - My first horse Nathaniel

 My whole life I was crazy about horses, dreamed about them, talked about them in every sentence and every 5th word out of my mouth, begged for one, planned how to get one, read every book and magazine about horses that I could get my hands on, plastered my wall with horse pictures..... you get the idea.... 

When I was about 11 my parents finally got tired of my horse obsession and told me that if I could get permission from the mission base director and if I could earn the money to buy and keep the horse then they would let me have one. Challenge accepted. We came to the States on furlough right before I turned 12 and left right after I turned 13 which was very convenient for my horse savings fund as I only requested money for those birthdays and saved every penny. I also worked as hard as a 12 year old girl could, mowing lawns, babysitting, starting a dog walking business, washing cars. Every dime went into my envelope with the words "Horse Savings" written on the front. By the time we returned to Brazil right after I turned 13 I had a little over $150 saved up for my horse. 

However, my very disappointed self was sent off to boarding school for that next year, where I was quite miserable and still extremely horse crazy. It was my first year at the boarding school for missionary kids and all the other kids knew each other well and had gone there for many years. I didn't quite fit in with the others and by the end of that school year I begged my parents to not send me back another year. Thankfully they figured out another way to educate me through high school, by correspondence classes and slow poke old fashioned mail. It was painful waiting on the mail system but somehow I made it through high school. 

A week after I turned 14, my dad told me that he had heard of a horse for sale in a nearby town called Candeias. He drove me there to see the horse. I was a ball of excitement and anticipation, hoping the horse would be a good one and that the price would be right. One look at the old, broken down, saddle sore on his back, grey gelding and it was love at first sight. I didn't care that you could see his ribs and hip bones and that his saddle sore was right in the middle of his back, or that he looked sad and tired. He was the Black Stallion to my Alec, the sun to my moon. He was perfect.

My dad arranged the price, which now, looking back I'm impressed he was able to talk the guy down and even arrange a truck to haul him home for me, all for under the amount I had saved up. I think I ended up still having around $10 to my name. They loaded the horse up and hauled him most of the way home. I wanted to ride him part way home down the dirt road so they dropped us off a few miles from home.

I had only ever had a few riding lessons and ridden a handful of times at that point in my life. So after they unloaded him from the truck and handed me the rope I wasn't quite sure how I was going to get on him to ride him home so I decided to just lead him until I could find a ditch or stump or something to climb on to jump up on him. As we were walking down the remote road to home a guy on a bike passed us and teased me about walking my horse instead of riding him. After that I was determined to figure out how to get on. Eventually we found a ditch and I manage to scramble up onto his back and we plodded the rest of the way home. 

When we arrived home, my mom was so upset and horrified that we had actually brought the horse home instead of just going to look at the horse. I promised that I'd figure out how to care for a horse and would do everything needed to maintain him and take care of him. Thus began my lifetime of horse ownership. Poor Nathaniel was quite the guinea pig for a 14 year old. But he was the best first horse I could have ended up with. He was kind and patient even with all my mistakes and goofs. He gallantly took me on ride after ride each day and I'd brush him, braid his mane and tail, pick up after him, go find him when his tether rope would break in the middle of the night and we'd get a call from another missionary family saying he was munching grass under their bedroom window at midnight. He was my best friend and companion during my teenage years where hormones were raging and all my friends were at boarding school and hour airplane ride away. 

On our daily rides, twice we came across an black panther, a few times we got lost in the jungle. We discovered places that I'm pretty sure the adults had no idea about. Some days I'd just sit on his back while he grazed and read a book, some days we would gallop and pretend we were on the beach with the ocean spray at our feet. Some days we were explorers discovering new lands. He was a trooper and did everything I asked him to do. 

When I was 16 my family went back to the United States on furlough. I begged to be left behind. I didn't want to leave my best buddy behind, even though one of the other missionary ladies offered to take care of him for me. My heart broke when we got on the airplane and left for a year. And sure enough not much later we got a call at 6 am from Brazil and they told us that Nathaniel was sick and couldn't stand up anymore and they needed to put him down. I couldn't do anything about it. I wasn't there to try and save him. I cried for weeks and weeks and nobody understood the depth of my heartbreak. Eventually we went back home to Brazil and after a short time I was able to find and purchase my second horse Foxy who was night and day different from Nathaniel, but that's a whole other story.