Postscript Life full of Surprises

 "Life is the sum of all your choices. Man is the only creature that refuses to be what he is." Albert Camus.                                                                                                                                Humans have an eight months reduced life expectance due to too high noise according to scientists, I am not surprised, but don't expect that this knowledge (should it eventually reach Tunisia) will change anything here. Tunisians love lots of noise, the louder the better. I never heard anyone tell a child to stop shouting, tuning once's motorbike to pollute the air with a stinking black cloud and extreme noise seems to be okay. Anyhow, in Paris two Noice Radars will be installed, for a start, next year all over the country. Drivers who modify their vehicle and violate the noise restriction laws will have to pay fines. Fines of course only work as an detergent if there are persons who observe, report and charge, not ignore. The "broken window" theory, if one window gets smashed of an unoccupied building and left like that, the other windows will eventually also be broken, I see this here demonstrated, a bit of rubbish is dumped by one person others follow suit and you end up with yet another wild rubbish dump. Bad habits die hard, even if they are against the law. - As my little feline treasures get older, I have to spend more on medication and on veterinarian treatments, but even the little ones are all too often not all that healthy. Pets' imune system is generally speaking much weaker than in Europe, poor little darlings. Nature provided them with a lot of beauty, ignorant folks, though, may be too blind to see. Today I only had three visitors to my Cats' Table, I am worried.  Hope they are okay and will return tomorrow, not murdered (e. g. poisoned) by evil folks. We have repeatedly been told that the cats, now that I feed them, are more quiet and relaxed. It has a positive influence on them.  I know my lovely little treasures as gentle and well behaved. I wish I could say this also about the kids in the neighborhood, some of course have respect and good manners. The others I try to teach not just to demand: "Bonbons, Bonbons" when they see me, but to also say "please". My husband likes to donate sweets, also to taxi drivers who are usually pleasantly surprised. I remember the time before the revolution, Ben Ali's dictatorship, when folks were frightened to talk about politics, even in a taxi, later on it come to light that several taxi drivers worked for the secret service. There used to be large posters of Ben Ali (together with his greedy wife Leila the biggestet bankrobbers in Tunisian history) everywhere, no shop seemed to be without, not that the citizens loved him, it was just fear. Reminds me of Machiavelli's words: "It is better to be feared than loved, if you can not be both. Hatred is gained as much by good works as by evil." Bred is very cheap, 4 baguette less than one Dinar, but it is only delicious while still very fresh, that is why folks are throwing away a lot, some is collected for processing as animal food, sadly also bred with mold. Anyhow, North Africa, Germany and Great Britain (probably even more countries) have recipes for stale bred.

 Leblebi (Tunisia) : Soake in a pot chick peas over night, then cook with the water for 45 to 60 minutes. Add olive oil, cumin, a bit of Harissa, stale bred cut in small pieces, perhaps also one hard boiled egg and some olives.

Hobes Bel Halib (Tunisia) : Boil milk, add stale bred cut in small pieces, a bit of sugar or honey, decorate with chunks of fried bred.

Tajin (Tunisian version) : Fry onions, garlic and tomatoes, add chopped or minced meat, lots of stale bred, tomato pure, peper, parsley, safran, cucuma, black peper, grated cheese, then place on a baking tray and bake for one hour.

Arme Ritter (poor knights) Germany: 1 egg yolk, 1/8 l milk, 1 tablespoon sugar, mix, place slices of stale white bred briefly in this mixture, then in bred crumbs and fry golden yellow. Add a bit of sugar on top.

Bred and Butter Pudding (Great Britain) : 150 g stale bred without crusts, or buns, butter, 50 g raisins, a little candid peel, 2 tablespoons white sugar, 1 large egg, 300 ml milk, nutmeg.  Butter a pie dish of aprox. 1 litre, slice the bred, butter it and cut into small pieces. Place half the bred in pie dish, sprinkle on the fruit and half the sugar. Cover with remaining bread. Beat the egg and milk, pour over the bread and leave 30 minutes to soak. Sprinkle top with remaining sugar and grate on a little nutmeg. Bake in a moderate oven, gas 4, 180 grade C for about 1 hour.     

Brotlinge (Germany) : onions, spring onions, caps parcley, vegetable leaves, mix under stale bred pieces, possibly grate vegetables like carrots etc, soak in a bit of water, spice, egg is not necessary, shape in flat balls and fry. 

One can of course also use a toaster to make stale bred taste delicious again, or cut it in chunks, fry and sprinkle on salads. There are many methods to save money and not waste food. I was brought up to believe it is a sin (haram) to waste food. In France (or GB?) a restaurant opened that charges guests extra if they ordered more food than they managed to eat. It is popular I heard. Tourists who booked all inclusive sometimes leave extensive food on their plates, I watched this in various countries, in poor countries I find this kind of behaviour especially embarrassing. Anyhow, while the weather is catastrophic in European and other countries, we enjoy lovely sunshine here. We should be grateful for that. Sad news: shortage of bred in the South, looks like artificially created to make bigger profits. - Dicovered a dead medium sized black and white cat near my house, injured face, was hit by a car. I have been informed that someone caught cats near my doorstep, put them in a transport van and drove off. The cats were possibly drugged first, I found some yellow oily substance in my water boil outside. Anyhow cats won't let strangers pick them up just like that. I may be wrong, but I fear the worst, not kind folks getting them spayed and neutered (if so, where are they now?) but rather a grim fate for gentle, innocent beautiful little treasures. I feel depressed and can't help crying. 

Life full of Surprises

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" Europeans.....  Westerners....  Russians..... Arabs... if you were to get to know them, not as a catagory, but individually, then you can see how we are all, more or less, flesh and mind, the same. We can only recognize ourselves in the faces of the Other." Elif Shaf          Many won't get their pet spayed and neutered, several because they believe it's haram (violates the Quran) others say this as an excuse because they don't want to spend the money or they can't afford to pay (approx. 120 Dinar for the female cat and half that amunt for the male). Anyhow, now that felines are on heat again, I viewed another family planning Tunisian style: a youngster throwing stones at a cat couple getting married. May he also one day receive stones as a wedding present! The other day I found a little black beauty sitting in front of my door. She is approx. 2 months old, well fed but suffering from champion, a not uncommon skin/fur decease, probably the reason why she was kicked out. The little darling is gentle, well behaved and needed no training to use the toilet like a good girl. Luckily I have a bit of medication from France in the house that allows me to heal my new treasure rapidly, unlike what is on the market here and requires a lot of patience. Our puppy Djego, meanwhile 6 months old, tries to train our cats to sleep at night and not walk around the house. Some don't want to accept his dictatorship and are even prepared to fight with him, so Djego barks louder. I discovered the best solution is that I try to "speak to him in his language", bark gently and calm him down this way. I guess Djego now believes that he is not the only dog in the house and that I am harmless. Life isn't easy for a young traumatized doggy. Hopefully a good experienced family, with a house and garden, can be found in Europe for our sweety. We love him, but he is not very happy with so many cats around, we haven't got a garden and there is no park or grassed open space area nearby suitable for playing with him and do some training. He deserves a better life. Every morning I now feed a so-called stray dog, very gentle, cats, adults and kids around here know this and like her. She patiently sits and waits for me to finish feeding my visitors to the Cats' Table. No trying to push in front, like many locals do at the counter. Happy to wait untill it's her turn to receive breakfast, great lovely treasure, pity I can't offer her a proper home. - Seems prices aren't just raising here, but also in Europe and Turkey. Unfortunately not just for imports, but also for food. In Turkey it extremely concerns flour, oil, eggs and vegetables. One man joked that he therefore now keeps oil and eggs in his safe. Some bakers tried to slightly increase the baquet price, but the government said No, it's not allowed. Everybody should be able to buy bred! Bred and games for the citizens, already the Romans knew that importance for peace in the country. But this is of course not enough, quite a few folks need to change their mentality, improvements take time, much destruction was done by greed and corruption, stealing on a big scale, often by officials and persons in high position - getting away with that. Our president wants to stop all this and the vast stolen amounts be returned to the country. He even closed down the Supreme Court, says the judges were also corrupt and need to be exchanged, some time in the future. Several welcome this action, others worry. 

Postscript Reality and Dreams

"The idea that we could control the course of our lives through rational choices is as absurd as a fish trying to control the ocean in which it swims." Elif Shafak.                           Still trying to convince our puppy Djego that all our cats represent his new family that he should protect and not attemt to chase away. When I mention cleaning his ears he retires to his house. Looks like he hates ears cleaning just like our feline treasures do. Big boy Riccardo decided to take a rest inside Djego's wooden house, our Atlas puppy (meanwhile more than 30 kg) was not amused and started to bark in front of his house. Riccardo ignore him (after all he weighs 6 kg.......).  When our lovely puppy showed me his teeth (doesn't need a dentist yet by the look of it) I showed him mine in return. He looked at it intensively,. but didn't seem to like it much. Following a few more attempts of Djego to get rid of his unwelcomed visitor, I interfered and dragged Riccardo out, after all our house offers many alternatives for gorgeous little angels to relax. The most popular place, however, is my lap or that of my husband and near the radiator in winter, in summer the roof terrace. Every morning our little darlings test how many can fit inside our small kitchen. Seems to so important to be the first one who is fed. Taking Cinderella for an x-ray, a bit of stress, and on account of this my husband forgot his shopping bag in the waiting room. When he noticed that a few minutes later, an approx. 8 year old girl had already picked it up and insisted that it belongs to her. My husband said no, it's mine. A man declared that the girl is the owner.  Asked what is inside the bag the young thief didn't know, my husband was shocked to experience that a child was considered more trustworthy than him. For those who believe children don't lie I have a message, such kids of course exist, but in my neighborhood several lie and steal, I have to take good care what I leave ouside, even just for a few moments. I brought from Germany a special item, designed as an aid for severely handicapped to pick up something from the floor. I use it to remove rubbish that hooligans throw behind my cactus plants. One day I left this accidentally outside for a minute or two and when I noticed found out that it had already been stolen. Luckily a neighbor saw a little boy playing with it and returned it to me. The kid insisted that his father had bought that item for him. Scientists say that 3 year olds are already capable of lying. Hopefully their parents teach them the difference between mine and yours, right and wrong. We have a lot of school holidays, seem to be longer than actual school days, not much time to learn, sad story. Manch household equipment has a shorter life expectancy here than in Europe, due to the climate and the water etc. Nowadays it is difficult to find tradesmen capable and willing to repair such items. Sometimes only a small low value piece would need to be exchanged to do the trick, if you know how. Reference this we could learn a lot from Cuba. In Germany some experts got together and opened a Repair Cafe. 

Wouldn't this be an idea for Tunisia and other countries with low budget citizens? We need new ideas to reduce unemployment and improve our economy.