Road trip: 4 states and a Peruvian Paso gelding
Over the last few days my family and I went on a road trip from Ohio to southern Virginia to see a Peruvian Paso horse. We drove through the Appalachian Mountains of West Virginia and even had some snow on the way. West Virginia’s slogan is Wild and Wonderful and, yes, that fits well.
We then arrived at Wheaten Point Farm where we met Maximiliano. He is a tall black Peruvian Paso gelding.
Here is Maximiliano with Carlos Gallegos, his Peruvian trainer.
After a demonstration of Maximiliano’s gaits by Carlos I was allowed to ride him. He is energetic and arrogant as a Peruvian Paso horse should be. To some people that might be a bit intimidating but it’s part of the breed’s characteristic. These horse just want to to go and perform. Initially I had to establish a bit my role on Maximiliano’s back but then we did understand each other well. He was born in 2006 and got some basic training, which is just enough to start riding him. It will be up to me to continue his education and carefully get him exposed to all the spooky things this world has to offer to horses.
Thanks to Rob Park, who is also a LeanDog software development coach, I am learning more and more about Clinton Anderson’s training method of natural horsemanship. There are some differences between the Peruvian training methods and what Clinton does but the basic ideas are pretty much the same: teach the horse respect and respect the horse to form a mutual relationship.
Maximiliano now has to wait a couple of days for his ride from Virginia to his new home in Ohio.
We are on our way back to Ohio. Yesterday we just crossed through a part of West Virginia again and then spent the night in Frostburg, Maryland. Today we have another 5 hour drive ahead of us, which will take us partially through Pennsylvania. All in all it will be about 1100 miles (1700 km) when we arrive.
Max the Haflinger
Meet Max. Max is a two year old Haflinger colt who now lives near Fredericktown, Ohio. He has been at an auction and would probably have been sent off for slaughter, if Julie Copper did not buy him. She looks for good horses at the Sugarcreek auction, buys them and then tries to find them a new home through her website.
Haflinger is a horse breed that was developed in Austria. These horses are supposed to be very calm and docile so that basically even the youngest member of the family can handle the horse safely. They can be ridden, pull a cart or even be used for some farm work pulling a light plow.
So far Max has been with us for two weeks and his character has shown to be just the calm horse as a Haflinger is supposed to be. Initially some at the farm have been worried that he might behave a bit pushy and aggressive because when he got there he had been a stallion. By now he went through the “procedure” and is now officially a gelding. He has not changed a bit since then. So that’s a good sign.
There was no problem loading him onto the trailer. He walked right into it. He leads very well and is really a people horse. I also discovered that he seems to understand German better than English. Saying something like Nein, which means No in English, appears to have a better effect. We don’t know nothing about where he was born. However, I assume that he was born on an Amish farm somewhere in Ohio, because the Dutch dialect the Amish speak is very close to German. I may be imaging all of this but somehow it feels about right.
I have started his training program, which really is me being trained on how to communicate with a horse. With the help of Terri Kucera Max and I have learned to move and stop, turn towards the human and to release the hindquarters all based on body language and a few words. It’s impressive how far that gets you. I can now walk up to him or into his stall and indicate him to move his butt around and face me – just by a small gesture.
As Max is only two years old, he is still too young to be ridden. According to the veterinarian he should be developed and strong enough by March or April for that. In a little while I will be shopping for a saddle so that I can start him getting used to all those things on his back and at the sides of his body. As he is a light draft horse I will need to find a saddle with a wider tree that fits well with the shape of his back. However, it is too early for that as he needs to get a bit more flesh onto his bones. Due to his history his nutrition wasn’t the best and he needs to recover a bit more before his body shape becomes more real.
Leaving Panama
Panama has been an interesting place to be. We made many experiences – good and bad. It was clear from the beginning that living in Latin America is going to be different from Europe or the United States. In our case – a German and a Colombian – there shouldn’t be a culture shock and there wasn’t.
As I write this we have officially left Panama.
A work related opportunity has made it more stressful to continue living in Panama. Staying would require too much travel back and forth with too much time away from the family.
The other reason – and it’s the thing I would like to say a few more words about – is that I consider my attempts to solve the legal problems regarding the land purchase a failure. On paper I am the owner of 128 ha of land in the Chepo district in eastern Panama. The office of land reform has refused to confirm my right of possession despite the fact that the former owner signed it over to me and then breached the contract he signed and causing damages to me. The office of land reform is even violating written Panamanian law to a certain extend but that doesn’t really matter much unless someone would care enough about it and has the power to apply legal pressure. By now a new entity has been established to replace the office of land reform. The name is ANATI but right from the start there has been a few bigger scandals of more valuable land than the one in question in my case. The initial director of ANATI had to resign. There are a lot of games being played and if you are interested in knowing more about crazy Panamanian politics you may read more about it at the Panama Guide website.
To assess the situation I had a few longer talks with different lawyers and learned that I can force the seller to leave the land he officially signed over to me and take possession in a matter of a few weeks. However, that doesn’t make me the legal owner. I would still have to fight for that in court and in the very end I do need the recognition of my ownership by ANATI, which is uncertain and can be in limbo for many years. I would be investing in improving the land, putting up infrastructure and even build a house without being sure that all of that is really mine.
As I don’t look forward to paying a huge amount of money to a lawyer and still have no legal security, I decided to stop right here and abandon the project “farming in the rainforest”. It has been a tremendous adventure. I learned many things and did many things that I would probably never have learned about or done without coming to Panama. The experience has enriched my life.
There is another problem with doing business in Panama and it is of social and cultural nature. It is something that shows human weaknesses.
While I was doing software development in my own office in Panama City I provided opportunities to a few Panamanians to learn about modern software development. I have been happy with their personal development towards becoming software craftsmen and they certainly were happy with the compensation received. However, after a while it turned out that due to comparisons to their friends working in more sales oriented companies a high salary became more important than their professional development. I am talking about 24 – 26 years old who were still living at home. Eventually some switched to the higher paying regular job or were pulled back in from their parents to help in the home business (subsistence agriculture). In retrospective I have to say that they themselves or their parents clearly did not understand the huge opportunity that were presented to them. I don’t blame them. It is likely that they were not believing in it because it’s not offered by anyone in Panama.
Later when I was pursuing the idea of setting up a farm in the rainforest I met a few good young people who worked for me in different capacities being it harvesting teak, building an off road trailer or a transmitter tower to bring Internet to a village. I have been very happy, we had a very good relationship and I helping them and their families here and there when the need was huge. However, after a while of enjoying the good life, they wanted more than the proverbial fair share and things went sour. In looking back it is probably a good thing that the farm project did never really start due to the land dispute. From at least two wealthier Panamanian acquaintances I was told that – despite the poverty in rural Panama – it is extremely difficult to find reliable people.
It appears that the pattern I have observed myself is a huge problem for many businesses. Panama has what is called locally a juega vivo culture. At its core is to be smarter than the other guy and have no consideration. Politicians and other elected officials demonstrate this behavior in front of everyone and so it is no wonder that it influences behavior.
Still – and I would like to stress that – I enjoyed living in Panama. There are many positive things that one can enjoy. Running a business is not one of them but other than that it can be a very relaxing and quiet place to enjoy life. Especially if one’s income comes from outside Panama.
