My Noble Princes and my Beauty Queens

Summer being obviously here with tropical nights, bright sunshine already around 4 a.m. leads to all my fur angels spending less time on the roof terrace and looking for a cool resting place on the ground floor terrace. Luckily they are happy to share, though like us they have their special friends, family/community members with which they get on better than with others. Playing hide and seek or a bit of fighting is all part of the game. Newcomers are sometimes very quiet and shy or a bit aggressive in order to make clear they don't want to be messed around, this may exclude or include me. Fancy being put in a box and brought to a strange place with strangers living there. Wouldn't we also feel insecure? Some cats obviously would love to be the "only child" while others are happy to have playmates and all love and seek our human company. We never feel alone. Great having these amazing little treasures wanting to cuddle, even telling us to continue to massage their beautiful fur. They have their own language and know how to communicate. I learnt to understand their limited "vocabulary" (isn't Trump's also rather limited?). The famous "meau/miau" cats only use as a call for help.  Alfonso a black and white street tomcat likes to have his breakfast sitting underneath the yucca palm tree in front of the entrance door and demands to be hand fed, asking for more after each bite. Some cats make a sound while eating, seems to be a comment like "delicious". Lovely Honey appears to be able to read my thoughts. 

She likes to spend part of the day outside. Lately when I open the door to call her I find her right in front of my entrance door, I may add it is not always at the same time. Bijoux (born in May 2013) recently lost a lot of weight. She had a lot of teeth, gum and kidney problems, following a special kidney diet, the later improved but she may have liver problems now, the vet informed us. Bijoux appears to feel depressed, hardly moves about. Cuddling and massaging she enjoys all the more, she can't get enough of it and it encourages her to eat and regain her will to live. After our precious, very special darling Felicitas passed away, her close friend Lilly, our other black lady, started to loose weight and take less interest in cuddling. Whenever a cat  changes her habit there is usually more behind it than one may at first suspect, it can be a sign of health problems. Unfortunately I can't save all. It is very difficult to cut my expenditures with those beauty queens and gorgeous princes looking at me with their blue, green, yellow or amber coloured eyes. Those without shelter coming to my door tell me they are also hungry, two approx. 3 months old decided to live underneath my yucca palm trees, considering this the second best to living indoors. And yes I try to provide for all of them as best as possible, more important than having a car or holidays. We are no longer planning to do a lot of travelling on the African continent and I am grateful my husband accepts this and thank heaven he too loves fur angles, our precious treasures.

From Day to Day

What do monkeys in the zoo say about their visitors? Thank heavens they are all behind bars!

Times are changing. Mail from and to Tunisia and Germany took one to two weeks - that was before the revolution. Now it's 2 weeks if you are very lucky, more likely 6 to 8 weeks, maybe 6 months or not at all, happened several times. So frustrating. If you need to go to an embassy you may discover that there a lot has changed as well. Without a prior appointment by phone (busy line, in addition e.g. that of the German embassy is only available for a couple of hours daily) you will be turned away. Expect less service and help than in the past. Getting a visa for Europe has become highly difficult, even with an invitation from a
resident there who meets all the stipulations (enough income, health insurance for the visitor, etc). I guess young men in particular are suspected of not wanting to return, thus misusing their visa. Even visiting relatives in Europe is now more difficult for Africans. Ever heard of the "door of no return" ? You can find it Africa, slaves who were forced to pass through never got a chance to return. Our society has become very fearful and mistrusting, having more sources for information available has added to it. News of a crime spreads faster, fake news also. While e.g. homicide was reduced by 63 % in Germany more folks are afraid of that nowadays. Many refugees trying to get to Europe by boat pay with their life. One in seven die in the sea. Zarzis (south of Tunisia) is one of the places where a large number of corpses are recovered/ washed ashore and buried on the cemetery of the unknown, really tough volunteer work (decomposed bodies of women, men and children) by amazing fishermen.  Chamesdine Marzoug started in 2005 to build the cemetery together with colleagues, 8 km from Zarzis on a 600 square metre plot of land, on their own expense, meanwhile supported by the town council, civil protection service, national guard and red crescent. A new cemetery of 2500 square meters is planned, named "The Garden of Africa", various donations made it possible to buy this plot of land. (They can do with additional donations)
It will have concrete grave stones, trees and flowers from the African continent and in addition it is planned to obtain DNA testing kids to help identification of the deceased.
The artist and fisherman L. Mohson, another amazing person in the South, created a museum with items found at the coast, washed ashore, including shoes of those drowned, thanks to Mr.  Mohsons some will not disappear without leaving a trace. Families of those trying to make it by a more, or all too often less sea-worthy boat to Europe are frequently not aware that they lost a family member for good, that he or she drowned in the sea. Terrible thought. Those who can just buy a ticket and fly to wherever they want, don't know how lucky they are. - There are now some solar street lights e.g. in Sousse and Kairouan, hopefully more of the old ones will be replaced by solar soon. Citizens of two towns, Sourh and Gasserine, are asked to spend a day together with the support of "Belladia" (town administration) in order to tidy up their town. This is meant to be only a start. Good to hear, a positive side effect will be that those participating (if not already) realize how much unnecessary pollution is done by carelessness, on the other hand see the beauty of a protected environment.