The Crown of Creation

When the teacher asked: What do you think is the purpose of our life, little Husein replied: I know, to play football.....  I am told some of the population in Souse came from the countryside, folks who don't want to work there anymore, sold their land and are quite different from the usual town inhabitants, who are not happy with their and in particular the kids' behaviour. They misunderstand the new freedom as a freedom to let their children roam the streets, no restriction by basic rules of a civilised society, regard respect for animal life, each other, and adults of any age or education as just a burden. As parents it is quite enough to provide a bed space, food and perhaps a football......  Fast food, junk food, too much of that makes aggressive, while vitamins have a soothing effect. This is the result of an experiment carried out in a Scottish prison with very violent young men. The positive change achieved by just providing healthy food with the necessary vitamins, it gives hope, but it's a long road. But anyhow, bearing this in mind, I have some idea what kind of food the kids in my neighbourhood consume, in addition there is evidence, the wrapping I find every day in front of my house and on the road. This total lack of respect and empathy, daily throwing of stones at animals, each other, adults of any age or education, even women old enough to be great grandmothers, it is difficult to bear, in particular by expats. Lessons those children learnt from the street: Do what you want, the street belongs to you, climb over walls, damage plants & walls, other folk's property, mock foreigners trying to speak Arabic, you are superior, independent of their academic degrees, after all your Arabic/Tunisian dialect is perfect! Teach animals to fear you, you are superior, the crown of creation! Girls asked me to differentiate, not to say children/ teens, etc. but just boys, they are not right in their heads, mad! Boys are bad, girls are better behaved (I agree, they often are, not always). When I compare the behaviour of cats and those boys here, I certainly prefer the company of the more civilised cats, who never threw stones at me, they know love, gratitude, respect. They understand my language, listen to what I say and tell me by purring they are happy to see me and appreciate my caring for them. The money I spent on presents for children in the neighbourhood I had better saved for street cats. The people here (not all thank heaven) like to take new born kittens away from the mother cats, often put them in the garbage container, dead or alive. When I ask where the mother is they tell me she's dead. So either the kitten's mother died straight after giving birth, or they kill her, but hopefully it's just a convenient lie. By my experience the still blind kittens (for the first 10-12 days) can't survive on cow milk before they can open their eyes. Yesterday I found  2 blind little ones, still alive, in the garbage container. I took them home, knowing it will depress me to see them die, but leaving them there with any rubbish dumped on them, suffocating like that is not worthy of a civilised society. They meanwhile died hugging each other. To see them like that made me feel ashamed of my species, the so-called Homo sapiens, some believe the crown of creation. - Tunisia needs a lot of support. These boys must not be left to roam the streets, which are extremely bad "teachers"' . Among the unemployed are many Tunisians with academic education, who could (possibly with further special courses) help to solve the problem, but this requires money, which I  believe is  presently not sufficiently available. Education is costly, yet it pays off in the long run! Uneducated parents need to be made aware of their responsibility, the importance of healthy food (home cooking, fresh vegetables are cheap) and that envy is destructive, it will never make you rich! Appreciate Expats, they are good for the country and contribute a lot, each one more than several tourists. I would love to recommend holiday in Tunisia, but when this idiotic stone throwing continues, how can I? I am not giving up hope yet. In every country there are good and bad people, children are like wax and can be bend in either direction. Let us educate and give them a future, it will be good for Tunisia too.