Postscipt Different Angle

"An eye-for-an-eye and tooth-for-a tooth would lead to a world of the blind and toothless" (Mahatma Gandhi? His biographer Louis Fisher?) It appears to be a wide-spread fashion to take revenge, not necessarily on the person who caused the anger but on anybody available. (Politicians do, simple folks do) Some feel society owns them something, if others are better off, no matter what, they don't deserve it. We've been receiving stones for more than 5 years, occasionally get hit by a ball, better me than one of my cats. Twice a car touched a kitten and kids informed me it is dead, but luckily the little one survived, like yesterday, received an eye injury but otherwise appears to be okay. I was pleased to hear children enquiring whether the kitten died and them praising Allah when I told them no. Thank heaven not all are without empathy. - A taxi driver said he had a young female passenger in his car, directing him to various streets and when the meter read 12 Dinar, declared she can't pay. The driver replied he'll take her to the police. So she advised him in that case she'll claim he touched her thighs. The poor driver then didn't dare to do anything, even though that is a lot of money for him. A similar case happened in Germany, only there the taxi driver didn't allow her to be successful with her dirty trick (success convinces people to continue, why should they change if it works?). The reaction from the police was a real surprise for the taxi driver. They informed him that the young woman is already registered for that trick, she uses it frequently. - My special cat guest, Alice, she gave milk to the adopted black kitten, but it also died, like the other 3 siblings. I picked up one of Alice's remaining kittens to check whether it's male or female, so Alice arrived quite cool, grabbed her babe by the neck (cats' style), took it away from me, thus making it quite clear: Her kitten, not mine!!! Pity I couldn't record it on video. Next day the 3-coloured kitten      died, now Alice only has 1 baby left, looking just like mum. Gloria is about to give birth again, nevertheless she still feeds and looks after her other, older kids. So different from Amira, who loved her babies and started to hit her children when she fell pregnant again. Even though we had her operated, she still hits Sandy, Soleigh and Bijou and appears to hate her gentle son (fears he sees her as the attractive female rather than the mother). As a result this family is difficult, Sandy likes nobody, neither human or animal, only me, her brother Tiger likes to sleep puring next to me (quite relaxing). Taking any of them to the vet is a big nerve-racking job and means quite a few scratches for me. I then joke my husband is a prickly person. We can learn from cats that a loving, gentle mother is likely to have kids just like her, while beating and yelling makes children aggressive, impulsive and vindictive. I saw on TV demonstrating folks in USA holding a sign saying: Only monsters put children in cages. A message for Trump and his followers. Very sad, that man has no moral, no empathy, as they say in Germany, he can walk over corpes without batting an eyelid. For all I know his parents were not the gentle caring type. Let us make our children see, enjoy and protect the beauty of nature, for a better world.

A Different Angle

A man talking to his friend: "You know what, my wife talks a lot with herself." The friend:"This really surprises me, she doesn't seem to be the kind." The first man: "Well actually she believes I am listening, but I am not, thus she's speaking to herself......"                        Information (INC) on my mobile phone, if you buy a dangerous toy you can injure a child. I am sure quite a few folks never think that far. While e.g. in Europe many parents worry what can happen to their children, in particular while they are playing outside, folks are much more relaxed here. The children know how to scream and run, in addition they are with their gang, enough protection, even for the very young until after midnight!  At the crossroads here up to 20 or even 25 kids arrive daily, dressed with football t-shirts, shorts and shoes. It looks very professional, only there is no football/ sports field and the surrounding houses bear the markings of all those balls and there would be many broken windows in addition, if they weren't protected with iron bars. Perhaps a sign is required advising:  "Crossroads, Not Sports' Field." - The town authorities (Belladia) decided to upgrade and clean the outside area around the lycee (grammar school) opposite the mosque, where various rubbish used to be dumped by thoughtless kids and adults. Thanks to Belladia it soon looked neat with a narrow gardening strip, different kinds of plants, benches, new slap pavement. The other day I viewed a middle aged man of considerable proportions walking his large roundish long fur dog on a leash. He guided his dog to what this mentally under-illuminated poor man mistook to be designated as dogs' toilet, the garden strip. He walked his dog all along this narrow garden, in order to allow him to do his urinating, leave his excrement, do his digging, etc., perhaps another sign is required here, advising: " Not a public dogs' toilet. " And: "Please don't decorate with your litter", as some kids/adults already dropped their rubbish  between the plants and I guess in order to gain more space for this, pulled out or bend a few, and like that it looks more like home to them. Talking about the environment, my neighbour's son keeps on and on trying to repair his motorbike (his garage is adjacent to our sitting room.) at 23.00 hrs.  The result of his attempts: stinking black clouds, burning my eyes, extreme noise, the floor shaking, feels like a slight earth quake. We are forced to keep our windows shut. Life never gets boring among the ignorant, you never know what they come up with next. I guess one can't have environment protection without employing folks who control and monitor that laws and regulations are not being ignored. If you want your town, village or community to be clean and an enjoyful sight, you need folks, some  with and some without payment motivated to protect the area. And it is very important to educate and educate, teach the ignorant, make them see and stop them having a blinkered attitude. Tunisia is lucky, there is such a large potential, many citizens with university diplomas, several even from poor and/or uneducated families managed to study. Yet 62 % are unemployed, very strange. Is there too much intelligence? Not the impression one actually gets. It does of course depend on where you are and whom you meet. Eid holiday, end of Ramadan, 4 o'clock in the morning, my husband asks some boys not to be so noisy, they retaliate with throwing stones. Later on a small boy, nicely dressed up for the holiday, spits at a cat in front of my entrance door and throws stones. I happen to view another one (approx. 6 years old) kicking a cat, just because he is stupid and bored or diturbed? Nicely dressed up women and young girls proudly walk past -is this the spirit of Eid? - A sick, nervous woman in the neighbourhood, fed up with having fiercely kicked balls damaging the walls of her house (our common problem here), getting angry, telling hooligans to disappear from this area. They retaliate by pulling down her door curtains, writing an insult with blue paint on her wall, smashing the large stones she had fixed on her pavement to prevent cars from parking there. I heard folk say, whatever you do, always expect their retaliation, one "wrong" word can already be enough. At the bank, I try to explain to a middle-aged man that since he arrived later than me he should queue up behind me. He looked so surprised, then laughed and went to another counter, expecting to be served first. (To be fair, some guys have excellent manners, some kids actually know respect, are educated with good manners.) Plenty of work for intelligent unemployed persons, just a question of financing? Retraining courses for lets say teachers to qualify them as social street workers should be more rewarding than having frustrated academics unemployed or taking on any odd job. In addition those kids growing up without rules, knowing no borders, no respect for anyone, abusing animals without empathy, will one day grow up and if nothing is done will most certainly not become "an asset" to society. Prisons are expensive and rarely make inmates better. Money is better spend on professionals qualified to interfere in good time, on anti-aggression training, educating the ignorant, teaching basic values, etc. We don't need an elbow society. Don't allow greedy, lazy, ignorant and corrupt folks to dominate. Tunisia is beautiful, whether it's a good place for living or not depends on the citizens.

My Little Treasures

Whenever I hear a dog bark, I hope that his bark is bigger than his bite. Most dogs on the street can be easily chased away, thank heaven. Cats carefully watch them, as they do with bored disturbed children of various ages. Just now I caught three 5 year old kids attempting to pour the drinking water (I leave outside for cats) over a cat taking shelter underneath my yucca plant behind my metal fencing. Yesterday I heard tiny kittens screaming from a garbage container, I lifted a bit of garbage but couldn't see them, too much rubbish of various kind had already been dumped on them. Treating the tiny ones just like vermin is what the ignorant, uneducated regard as civilisation. I fear they often also kill the mother, "capital punishment" for falling pregnant. Later on I discovered a lovely big, mainly white cat in an open cardboard box. She had an apricot sized wound on the back and was highly pregnant, still alive but I could see from her eyes that she's dying. So I just stroked her, I could feel her babies. She didn't make a sound and shortly later died. The wound (and her death) may be inflicted by a thrown stone, a beating or an accident. Everything is possible here, lack of empathy a big problem and I would like to stress such behaviour is not in line with the Quran. Not yet giving up hope, I often shout "Haram" (meaning the Quran forbids you such action). Alice, a golden coloured street cat and regular visitor to my Cats' Table, for several days stayed very close to my entrance door and on various occasions tried to get  inside (my cat community doesn't like it). I could see that Alice is pregnant and looking for a save shelter. I know the panting sound when a cat is just about to give birth, (the first time it was lovely Amira, our house cat, then glorious Gloria - also in front of our entrance door) and quickly took her inside. It was just in time. Alice gave birth to 3 sweet alive kittens and another 3 arrived already dead. She is such a caring Mum, one hardly notices this little family. The babies are happy, not screaming (unlike those taken away from their cat mother), my husband even asked whether Alice's kittens are still alive. I keep her in a small corridor, away from my other cats as the majority consider our community to be already big enough. My husband is of the same opinion. Anyhow, Alice is a quite gentle cat and her babies are just like her, a happy little family. As always one kitten looks like her/his mum and the others like their fathers. Cats manage to give birth to (usually 4) kittens of different tomcats on the same day. Due to a generally week immune system and other problems cats don't get old here, most die during the first 3 months of their life, several more during the following few months. I've seen so many dead: run over by a car, hit by stones, killed by a dog, bad teeth and gum making it impossible to eat, bad cold preventing the cat from smelling the food (what they can't smell they won't ear), fatal injuries and prior to this lots of pain caused by airgun bullets (in the neighbourhood), malnutrition, etc.. Lately I noticed several of my regular guests at my cats' table suddenly disappeared. It is highly unlikely they found another place to provide them with daily food or that they found a family, certainly not several at the same time. Sudden death by nature or poison? Both is possible. Among those who disappeared without a trace are Snowflake, a lovely cat with long white fur (wasn't well but recovering, may have had a home and hopefully returned there) and Tony, a big gentle tomcat that allowed me to clean his nose and eyes - cats actually hate that (some of my in-door cats react as if I wanted to kill them, less easy), he just started to eat again and I was happy to see this. Folks keep bringing me tiny kittens, but I unfortunately can' t cope with any more. Sad, at least these people try to save kittens' life, but I'd wish they would employ a vet and get cats operated in order to reduce the number of unwanted kittens. I had quite a few operated, yet I find so many kittens in front of my door or placed underneath the Yucca plants next to my entrance door. The last ones I accepted, were 3 grey and 1 black baby kittens, a few days old, had just started to open their eye, the mother is dead I am told (pity there is rarely a father in sight to take over, but I know of at least one case in Germany). I bottle fed them with 1/3 cow milk and 2/3 mineral water. Without the mother or at least a foster cat their chances are not very good. One died after 7 days, it looked peaceful. One of the others I added to the 3 that Alice already had of her own. She accepted it and I hoped the little family won't be too disturbed, as this little one belonged to these 4 that were accustomed to doing a lot of screaming, missing their mum. (With my really bad headache the last 2 days it was rather trying.) Anyhow, a bit more screaming and now all are happy. I wonder what Alice thought, when the additional kitten arrived (can't she count up to 4?), I think she just felt sympathy for the poor little darling. We can really learn from cats. Bijou has gone hiding in our house. We know her teeth are bad, the vet had to pull out 4, the gum causes pain, sometimes she screams suddenly, even without eating anything. What was intended as protection by mother nature (sick/week animals make easy prey, better to hide) is now a disadvantage, we can't take her to the dentist-vet when we don't know where to find her and then it won't be easy as she is frightened. Nevertheless I nearly managed but then she happened to put one of her claws into a vein of my hand, just slightly, but it was enough to get me bleeding. As son as I noticed this I quickly stopped the bleeding by simply applying pressure with a finger. Just as well we are provided with 2 hands. For the next attempt I shall wear oven gloves. Hope I'll find my little treasure soon, the poor little darling urgently needs help. - On the morning of the next day I found one of my tiny grey kittens dead, at least it looked as if it was sleeping, a peaceful death, of the remaining 2 one was with Alice for a couple of days meanwhile, well adopted, I tried to add the other one to Gloria's. But she is pregnant again, she was so fast, I've been thinking of getting her operated....... she was faster. Anyhow, she wasn't interested this time to feed her milk to yet another cat's baby and this sweet baby died also. All my attempts were in vain, except for one, they were just too young to survive without a cat mum. - I found a kitten that looked as if someone had thrown a bucket full of washing water over it (for the 2. time meanwhile, it definitely wasn't raining, besides it looked like dirt water)  cleaned and dried its fur, cleaned its nose and eyes. I wonder why so many kittens suffer from blocked noses and "sealed" eyes here. In addition they often also have pus in their eyes. Never encountered this in Europe. Strange. A few hours earlier I discovered a tiny kitten on top of an approx. 3 m high wall. Under no circumstances can it have got up there all by itself. Some bored stupid youngster must have placed it there, next to a small flat roof, without food or water. I asked a tall young lad from the neighbourhood to help me and he managed to get it down with the aid of a stool. The little one was so thirsty! Next I cleaned its nose and eyes, the usual procedure. Poor little darlings, they also have but one life. I hope the sun will put us all in a better mood and allow us to enjoy the beauty of this country. We need solidarity.