Such is Life

  A flea can harass a lion more than a lion a flea (Kenyan proverb).                                            One of my blogg viewers suggested I could perhaps write about sports/football. Thank you for your kind comments. There are surely better sports' exerts than I am. I studied human behaviour, educational & social sciences etc. , nevertheless I do of course understand the importance of sports and in particular football for males/females of all ages. You can make a boy happy by buying him a football, but please, please, teach him respect, so that he can be respected. He may feel like a king - after all we have a lot of " Royalty" here: Royal Beech Hotel, Royal Salem Hotel, Royal Jinene Hotel etc., Parc d' Prince, golden painted furniture on sale - yet in our society exists property that belongs to other folks who don't like the markings of his football on their walls, cars, or even heads and other parts of the body, nor his and his playmates never ending ear-splitting yelling.                                                               It is more blessed to give than to receive, sounds good, but not all that simple. If you try to help within your financial limits, it may be misunderstood that there is much more to come, providing the receiver can think of a good reason for "just one more request, the last one" (there are many last ones, believe me, like: medication, hospital, x-ray, gas bottle, food,  the same again this time for the mother, wife, child.....). Sympathy with hungry or injured cats must mean you are rich, simple minds see it that way and children do. The Quran states 5 steps a Muslim must follow, number 3: help the poor. In view of all those expensive new cars I see here every day, I'd think there is plenty of money around to support the needy! Unfortunately that remains a nice dream, here as in other countries, with other religions, wealth is uneven distributed & the rich are not too keen to share. A severely handicapped person receives 100 Dinar (will raise to 110 soon) support from the state per month, some medicine distributed by hospitals is free; yet not always handed out "the correct way", therefore perhaps not available this time....                                                                                  Sharia for cats?  Animals don't know stealing, they have no money to pay with. Some food is given to them, on other occasions they help themselves; it may be necessary in order to survive. Now several people here appear to practise Sharia for cats that "steal". They beat, stone, kill them or chop their tail off. If you think that's justified, tell me what would be the appropriate punishment for human thieves (I encountered some)? While several kids ask for food for their cat or dog, others just steal what I put outside for cats, sometimes including the bowl! A boy on a bike, approx. 5-6 years old,  kept saying "money, money " to me (probably the only English word he knows), so today I replied: "Atini barscha fluss" (give me a lot of money). His reaction was quite unexpected. He almost cried and declared he hasn't got any money; his mate stressed that his father is poor. One needs to be careful with making jokes with children, they often don't recognise them as such, there was no reason why I should seriously demand money of him!  Poor boy, at least his parents managed to get him a bike, like several others lately have and better shoes, I noted.  The other day, returning from a supermarket, I met him again and he once more said "money, money " to me. When I replied I haven't got any, he advised me, since I've been shopping, this can't be.                                                                                                                                           A woman looking as if she has problems to make ends meet, enquired whether we would sell or let our house. She either thought perhaps we may have given up and are now prepared to sell or let the house for next to nothing or she's one of these "hobby brokers" here. For this you don't need any qualification, just get the prospective seller & buyer or the prospective landlord & the tenant  together and in case of success, charge both parties.   What have kids and cats in common? When Mummy isn't near, they scream a lot (kittens do), run fast and love to play ball, football & handball; whereby cats have the advantage of four legs to shoot the ball. A young lady asked me: "Why do cats love you?" An interesting question, a few people noted how different they react to me (come running, let me stroke them, want to sit on my lap). I think the answer is, I love and respect them.                               More tourists are slowly coming back and hopefully the town's authorities can take the necessary steps to make Souse more attractive again, in my opinion this includes educating the hooligans, reduction of avoidable air pollution and noise (traffic!). The beautiful lilac & jasmine blossom, strawberries, it is all there now while the days are still cold in most of Europe.                                                                                                                          Good News (some may value it differently): With effect of 27th April it gets expensive to: just drop your waste (wrappings etc) where ever you are (50 Dinar), not to use seat belts (60 Dinar) whereby taxi drivers are exempt in towns, supposed to make their work easier - but surely not safer, urinating on the street (60 Dinar), never occurred to me to be a big problem, yet at taxi/ collective taxi stations public toilets should be available (not always the case).  Tunisia is on a good way, hopefully next will be tackled the problem with those motorbikes, often without registration plates, proudly ridden by young men who don't care for air pollution & health risks and tuned their motorbike to create maximum exhaust gas and ear splitting noise. One should not forget those folks who collect plastic bottles for recycling and old bread to be reused for animal food (some bread with mould - when heated up and mixed with other supplements hopefully won't be harmful), mainly elderly men, not uneducated, they contribute to environmental protection, earn very little money and deserve our respect! Quite a few have seen better days.                                                           It would be great if this stone throwing, "just for stupid fun" could be stopped, this requires adults/sensible youngsters willing to educate those who practise it; after all we all want a modern society not a return of stone age. This in my opinion also means respect, dignity and empathy, laws to protect animals. Unfortunately some folks will only change/stop stupid behaviour if forced by law, a start has been made, more will follow for a better Tunisia, I hope.