Horse

Last year I spent some weeks in the Tien Shan Mountains, east Kyrgyzstan. I had been alone for much of the time, walking, dipping in and out of two different towns that I used like base camps, to reprovision, wash clothes, and plan the next route.

I finished up in the region after a blustery weekend. I’d ensconced myself in a hotel room (this was actually so I could listen to the footy on online radio, but that’s another story) and let the weather pass, before deciding to move to less snowy country further west.

Heaving my big backpack, I walked across town with mixed feelings. The end of another chapter was drawing near, and I wondered whether or not my particular style of travel had helped me come close to the country I was. I had sought a lot of solitude, and space to appreciate the physical landscape, but my relationships with local people had been somewhat superficial.

Yet as I walked through the muddy streets on the edge of town, I was approached by three children. They were probably six or seven years old, and the three them held each other’s hands conspicuously in front of them. As soon as they got close to me, they said ‘hello’ in a boisterous but well-rehearsed way and opened their hands, to reveal a plastic toy horse.

I have kept the horse as a curious souvenir. It’s hard to explain just why the kids’ gesture meant so much to me. It is partly to do with the significance of the symbol — the horse is central to Kyrgyz culture. But I suspect it had more to do with how that brief meeting was fit a piece into the puzzle of my journey. It was a spontaneous answer to a silent query. In my scrappy little notebook, I scribbled:

   For no good reason, you can find yourself alone,
   set outside, an alien.

   In turn, one day you may find yourself
   loved for absolutely nothing. 

I have often found that travel helps open me up to certain emotions, inner experiences, which might otherwise be held at arm’s length. I like the sadness that comes with long journeys, the loneliness, the sense of displacement. I may not enjoy them at the time (though sometimes I am perspicacious enough to do so), but even confusion and boredom are gifts. In such times, the merest moment of kindness can be hugely enormous.

At an impromptu depot on the main road, an hour after I met those horse-bearing children, I had a confused multilingual discussion about how to get the bus out of town. I plonked my pack down, sat on a dusty bench, and looked out at the main road, unsure if I had the correct end of the stick about my purported travel plans.

I fiddled with the bony equine model, remembering the special spirit of the horse, its central role in the world of those mountains. Symbol of movement, of trade, cultural exchange, the horse travelled with me when the bus eventually came.