Anyway and Anyhow

 "You don't teach the path to a forest to an old gorilla." Ubuntu African Proverb.  "A stranger you give a plate of soup will appreciate more than a brother you give a whole pot of soup with elephant meat." Onyekachin Moore.  "Power is when you have every justification to kill someone, and then you don't." If you saw a dog to be crushed under a car, wouldn't you help him.? "  Oskar Schindler.   " Perhaps it would be the best if the government would elect for itself another people."  Bertholt Brecht.                                    Our sweet tomcat, Carlo, behaves simular to human kids. Whenever his vice-daddy tells him off (usually for forgetting to pull in his claws, unfortunately very common among our feral children), he comes running to his vice-mummy. Tiger is our senior, now 11 years and 4 months old. Having spend every night and several hours during the day in our bedroom, he lately decided to move out and make more use of the rest of the house, mainly the terrace on the roof or downstairs. I miss him cuddling with me under my blanket, in particular since the death of my gorgeous Sandy who used to spoil me with purring me to sleep. All cats are definitely not the same. Our all- black kitten, Coco, loves to cuddle with all adult cats and tries to suck milk from males and females alike, even though her actual mother, Fleur, is still around. Anyhow, Coco is the only one of our 5 kittens who likes to lay on my lap, the others prefer to be with their mothers. Amazing how well our lovely blind boy, Loulou, and pretty blind kitten, Snowflake, manage to get along in our house. My worries were not justified. From time to time, though, Snowflake calls me from the top of the staircase to take her safely downstairs. Originally I had planned to buy a house in an area where mainly academic folks live, but we landed in a mixed place, where the lesser educated are prevailing, this explains several of my disappointments with this quarter of town, expressed on my blog. Why not move? Well, our main compensation are those gorgeous cats around here (inside our house meanwhile and visitors to my Cats' Table). Anyhow, neighbors across the road decided several days ago to put a group of plastic chairs in front of their house in the evenings and regularly hold rather loud meetings of adults and kids, until midnight or even later. It gets so loud that we are forced to close our windows, not ideal during tropic nights. Now we understand why long corridors are so common here. Our house was unfortunately not constructed like that. Though my husband advised me that it would get me nowhere, I thought that one must be able to speak politely with neighbors and ask them to be more considerate please. The reaction I received frankly shocked me. Looks like I tried to hold a civilized conversation with folks who lack basic manners. In Europe one would call the police (in France the baliff) on account of " disturbance of the peace".  The unemployed around here can afford to sleep until lunchtime, therefore require no Siesta and have no problem to stay up all night, including their very young kids, and be "a bit loud" to say the least. Those who believe that no one deserves respect will give you "a mouth full" if you address them. That is why citizens often prefer not to react, just ignore the hooligans. But just looking away won't change anything. Shouldn't we advance more? Educate the ignorant., easier said than done. In Europe they often start with the children. Those who attend Kindergarten are better prepared for school, providing the kids are taught basic manners, apart from fair playing, enjoying books, etc. Kindergarten here are too expensive for many and the standards aren't always perfect. Some parents told me their children  were unhappy, even got beaten. Pre- school kids are at an age when they can and often are eager to learn a lot, if given an opportunity to do so. I once taught a 4 year old girl  and 5 year old boy English as the family intended to move to US. It was great fun. The little girl told me English people eat excrements. When I asked what made her think that, she replied: Well, cake ("Kake" is the German slang word for excrements). And fast food, if you read the first word as a  German one, means almost food. In some cases not so far removed from the truth. Sadly the new generation tends to prefer it to home cooking, so I am told. May be that explains why the new generation grows taller, yet many are rather skinny, legs "stork like". In North Korea people are shorter nowadays than they used to be. Experts say it's the result of poor quality food and the (meanwhile?) past  starvation period. Unicef declared that in Gaza 90 % of Palestinian children are undernourished. At least they are getting vaccinated wef. 1st of September. Hopefully a cease-fire is possible for this, so all concerned won't be endangered. Heaven help us all.