Good and bad days

Teacher: "Osama, please add two plus three." Osama: "Seven". Teacher: "Wrong". Osama: You always criticize me that is why I don't like school!"-  What is mend to be a constructive suggestion for possible improvement is frequently misunderstood as unjustified critique or even an insult. Why? This may be due to lacking self-confidence, the social surrounding adds to a strong personality if there are many good models, encouragements, if infants grow up with the feeling that they are important, someone is always there, just for me. Courage, patience, respect and empathy - children don't learn this by roaming the streets, if they are more or less just provided with a bed space, some food and the decision, when it's time to go to sleep (roundabout 2 a.m.) is left to them. Too much freedom is bad for kids, they like to test how far they can go, what if they aren't told where the borders are, what kind of behaviour is good and which is not, well in this part of Souse several children lack a feeling of wrong doing,

 I noticed. They are not accustomed to being told what to do, not that everybody is happy with their behaviour, it's just that many have given up, as when you say something, you get a mouthful back! - In Israel someone had a good idea how to occupy teens living at the coast, it is called "pick and run". This of cause doesn't mean steal and run, but pick up rubbish that doesn't belong to the beach and run, thus make it a kind of game. The kids here don't know how to occupy themselves (apart from playing football according to their very own rules, which includes ear-splitting yelling) and they appear to be constantly running, may be someone could encourage them to "pick and run" also?  -Children knocked at my door: "One of your cats got hit by a car."  It turned out to be an approx. 8 months old black and white cat, a regular visitor at my cats' table. She had almost crossed the road when she got fatally hit and died almost immediately. At least she didn't suffer for long. Looks like the kids regard me as the person who protects and feels responsible for cats, they tend to inform me if one of them gets injured or dies. - Sunny-boy, a lovely golden coloured tomcat, living in Kairouan, a regular visitor without a permanent home but always welcomed at our house, disappeared for a few weeks. I missed his purring and cuddling. When he returned, he had lost weight, his fur looked dull, he looked neglected and much older than his actual age of 4 years. But anyway, we were both happy to see each other; he purred and cuddled with me, just great. My joy to have him back didn't last long, one week later he passed away in the yard, without any apparent reason, I am feeling very sad. - In Kairouan we once consulted a vet because Bambino, a kitten, was bleeding from the anus. The vet very briefly "examined" the baby cat (thought eating fish caused the bleeding).  I got the impression that cats are not the kind of patience this vet "favours", guess he thought since so many exist, why worry about one. I believe every cat/ animal has but one life and that matters. That's why I can't eat meat. -  When it rains, a road with a sandy surface for centuries always got very muddy in Kairouan and walking along there  you had to be very careful not to get your clothes dirty. A couple of years ago at long last the town got the road tarred. In Souse one  road with a fair amount of traffic has many holes which some folks filled with sand. Works well as long as it doesn't rain, on account of this some holes are now more or less filled with small stones. Much remains to be done and funds are obviously limited. The streets are congested with traffic, surprising so many can afford a new, often expensive car, unfortunately usually a Diesel, as we know this is not good for the environment, the same applies to those motorbikes. Difficult situation as folks here simply love the sound of running engines and the smell of exhaust gas, therefore the driver very rarely switches off the engine when he takes a short break of let's say 5 to 30 minutes. Strange, some guys complain about "too expensive petrol/ diesel".  A lot of education is needed here to make citizen understand they are also contributing to the change of climate, making life difficult for themselves, their offspring and others and last, not least, exhaust gases are not good for ones health. Viewing people/ whole families on a motorbike without any protection whatsoever, some young men even topless, regarding their bare skin to be enough protection ("real strong men") makes me wonder, do they care for their health? May be it's just that feeling of total freedom, live wild, die young. Good night and good luck!

What we can learn from Cats

 Cats are modest, happy with some food, water, shelter, a bit of care, attention. How much do we need to be contend? They are grateful, not premeditated and have respect. When two tomcats have "an argument" (gets a little noisy), they accept me as "mediator" and take a piece of food to calm down. Children asked me: "Do you speak to cats?" Yes, I do and they more or less understand what I'm saying, maybe more the tone of my voice than my words, though several words they obviously do understand. Sometimes cats close their eyes when I speak to them gently, seem to enjoy it; they recognise and appreciate love and affection, their love is honest, their purring relaxes me, my joy and reward. Stroking a cat is a good way to reduce too high blood pressure  (common medical problem here). Cats don't judge other cats or human beings by their looks. Beauty is only skin deep, as the British say and this is also how cats value it, physical beauty is of no importance, if your character is ugly, you are ugly. Cats don't practise racism, since all human beings have common ancestors from Africa, it doesn't make sense anyhow, not just for cats. The cats in Tunisia often have problems with their eyes, watering through too much sun, one or both eyes kind of "sealed", when I treat their eyes, clean their ears and/ or nose, it is unpleasant for them, not always necessarily understood but accepting me doing this proves their tolerance of my "strange ways". Are cats more tolerant than we are? They need a lot of it to live with us. Our hearing is poor in comparison to theirs, these extreme loudspeakers that our so popular at outdoor celebrations must be hell for them. Cats are successful vermin-destroyer. Do we thank them? Back in history folks used to, in some countries it was a crime to kill a cat, kids here frequently have a disturbed relationship concerning cats. I viewed little girls and teens being even frightened, reacting as if they are monsters. Why, what happened? When I pick up one of Jasmina's kittens for a brief treatment, she from time to time makes me understand that even though she's got a big family (6 children), this doesn't mean she is willing to let me have one of them. Great Mummy. Love and education for children, this too some parents can learn from cats. By the way, cats love playing football too, on the ground or thrown in the air - with 4 legs they have different possibilities - and they play without yelling, that's great. Is it because they are happy and contend with so little?

Social Behaviour of Cats

Cats are individuals and not as subservient as dogs that is why some folks prefer dogs. What we have in common with animals is the influence of parents behavior and other experience on the character. Jasmina (I mentioned her before) has raised 4 lovely kittens now approx. 8 months old and still very detached to their caring Mum. She surprised me with another pregnancy while still living with her 5 months old kittens. Two months ago she gave birth to 4 little ones,  of which 2 died for unknown reasons, the other 2 are fit. Jasmina continues to give milk from time to time to her older kids with which she made more fuss when they were still baby kittens, than which her second lot, a more relaxed mum now. Don't human beings behaved likewise? Experts say that is why the first born is often more intelligent than his/her brothers and sisters. They are a lovely big family who care for each other and Mummy is always prepared to defend all of them. Another cat mother, three-colored Amira (our first Tunisian cat, mentioned before) had 4 kittens, tomcat Tiger, his sisters Bijou, Sandy, Sollie. Though born on the same day, they presumable have different fathers (not a problem for cats), and look differently. Sandy has golden colored and white fur and amber colored eyes. She tends to panic quickly. Amira was a great Mum, yet once her children were grown up and she fell pregnant again, she changed her manners and now doesn't like her children all that much, I guess nature thus ensures that they'll be space for the new generation. When we had her operated (family planning forced on her), we were not aware that she was already pregnant again). Now Amira has problems with her son, tiger (looks a bit like one, but usually very gentle), who sees in her the "woman" while she doesn't want "an affair" with her son. So we try to separate them and now she spends most of her time with Sandy who unfortunately sometimes gets hit by her mum. This may explain why Sandy doesn't like other cats very much, nor people. She only loves me and would be very happy to live with me as my "only child". For years I did actually live with just one cat at a time, worked well. The way it is now wasn't planned, simply a changed situation, many  wouldn't be alive any more without my "asylum". But I must stress I've reached my maximum and my big cat family made it quite clear, we are many and can't accept any further additions. Besides, it's getting rather expensive, food, medication, vet, family planning........ while my neighbors appear to think I must be rich, plenty of savings in the bank so I afford to provide food for their cat or dog, help the poor..... I would like to support the stray cats, living in the neighborhood - my true neighbors - even more, but I am limited. Feeding them very early in the morning, I really enjoy, folks sleeping, no kids yelling and running around like lunatics, great, makes it worth getting up even earlier than during my working life. They all eat up - as parents tell their children in Germany, don't leave food on your plate and then the sun will shine - works well here. Later on it would be nice to keep a bit of food outside in a bowl, but the bowl gets broken by hooligans or stolen with the food to feed their dogs. Though I like dogs as well, they usually don't mix with cats and I can't afford to feed them as well, besides, hooligans like to use dogs to chase cats. Not easy to live among the ignorant. My 4-legged neighbors have increased in numbers, but they don't - perhaps being aware that supply is limited - accept new comers from further than a certain distance. Some are gentle with baby cats not belonging to their family, while others chase them away. As I said, cats are individuals!

Postscript A different Mentality

The bricklayer who just finished his job, had his motor-bike stolen. He asked us to lend him money for a short period so that he can buy another one. This we did. A little while later we had another smaller job for him and suggested deducting the money from the sum he owed us, thought he would be happy with the offer, but no, he advised us he can't offered to do so,  if he works he needs to be paid for it directly! We finally had our money paid back after one year. Later on we found out that several people prepared to help, never got their money back. So we should consider ourselves lucky! Such experiences are not helpful to create a good society where not everyone asks what his/her profit will be. - Someone from the neighbourhood (don't know the family) wanted to celebrate outside along our house a wedding and requested we remove the heap of sand from our pavement to a place further down the road in front of a ruin. This we had to decline for health reasons. We finally agreed they do this themselves and return the sand onto our pavement once the celebration is over. We should have known better, they couldn't be bothered to return the sand to its previous place and a fair amount got stolen. The place where the sand was placed looked like an invitation to do so. We are blessed with very interesting neighbours, another one attempted to educate me down to his level and even invented regulations that no Tunisian ever heard of, just for me. He strongly believes in double standards. - The power supply company, STEG, send a message on mobile phones, suggesting to reduce the consumption, yet they waste electricity, too many street lamps, making nights as light as days, thus encouraging even very small kids to play football out on the streets until well after midnight. Don't say it's for security reasons, robbery happens also at broad daylight and hooligans don't mind the extra illumination. What is keeping me here? For one thing I don't want to leave those beautiful lovely cats unprotected and in addition  I haven't lost hope yet that it will get better and Tunisia can be great, some need to be pushed in the right direction  and the ignorant require a lot of patience and education. Hopefully folks here will also learn that exhaust gases from cars and motor-bikes are harmful to the environment, at present they seem to enjoy the sound of running engines (like music?) quite unnecessarily while parking for up to 10 minutes or even longer!