Hello!

Here is an update on my life here -- I hope the paragraph formatting
is OK -- I wrote this offline, using Word, w wh I'm not so familiar...
so I am p[utting an asterisk in front of each para. [I removed those
after reformatting for the FML, but your post came through fine, by
the way. BIG]

Non FML friends -- feel free (of course) to skip the ferret-related
stuff.

Catherine -- wd you forward this to Katherine and send me her home
email address? BIG -- if you want me to pare this (or any other of my
posts) down, just let me know. [This two-part post on a light day was
combined into one. There's enough ferret stuff to be on-topic. BIG]

- - -

Everything is going along fine here.

The ferrets, cats, and dogs are adjusting to their new diets of
chicken and mutton. I wasn't there when the mutton was being pressure
cooked, but it seems as though those bones will not get soft the way
chicken bones will. On the other hand, perhaps the stew wasn't cooked
for long enough. Once I get the Customs declarations done I shall work
w Tsige fulltime on the animal diets so we get them just right.

Our vet, Dr. Dawit (David) came over this morning and took a look at
Ada, my "tiny white" adrenal ferret and at Raoul, my orange cat who'd
been sneezing for a couple of days. Raoul's sneezing had mostly gone
away, and Dr Dawit said no treatment was necessary -- no sign of
respiratory infection, so it was probably an allergy.

He agrees that Ada looks great. She has put on weight, is not so
hyperactive, and her fur has thickened out and become less dry and
coarse. We looked at my vet records from the US and confirmed that
she doesn't need another melatonin implant till March.

Suki sent me some info on new protocols that are being looked at for
controlling adrenal tumors, which I passed on to Dr Dawit. One involves
a cheaper, longer-lasting substitute for Lupron that is not yet OK'd
in the US. Here nothing is controlled except some narcotics and other
psychotropics, so if we can get it I might try it -- unless I get
significant feedback that it is not a good idea.

Doing this is based on something I read in which some people think
melatonin isn't really helping the basics, only the cosmetic aspects
of adrenal symptoms. I certainly am in no position to decide on the
validity of this, but I'll see what else I can find out about it.

Did I tell you that I am planning to start a veterinary-based NGO
here? I am sure I told you that there is no modern vet equipment
here -- no anesthesia by gas, no xray equipment, etc. I haven't
even seen a great operating table -- and I have seen some that are
horrendous.

So I have proposed to Dr Dawit that we start an NGO and see if we
can organize donations of equipment. If any of you have ideas about
obtaining such donations, pls let me know.

Though this is a very very poor country, I am pretty sure there are
enough Ethiopians and Europeans here who would support a modern clinic.
Dr Dawit and I will be checking this out as we prepare our proposal for
the Ministry of Justice to form our NGO. Exciting, huh?

Ms. Ada continues to be a great source of entertainment and happiness.
Who do you suppose made the quickest adjustment to the new diets? Who
do you suppose disappeared first into the new burrows and worried us
that she had escaped out the other side of the ferret pen? Who do you
suppose made an escape from the fert room? Why Ada of course.

One lovely routine here is what's translated as "the coffee ceremony."
We doit on most afternoons. Tsige or Ababa grinds and roasts the beans,
and the coffee is brewed over a tiny hibachi-like thing. The coals are
also used to create fragrant frankencence smoke. It turns out that
francencense (not sure how this is spelled) is a resin.

Usually it's me, Ababa, and Tsige, and sometimes Sisay is also with
us -- more often, now (another story coming up) -- who drink the coffee.
The cups are tiny -- Turkish-coffee size. We often divide up a capful
(a little metal screw-on one) from our bottle of lemon arake, a
30%-proof grain liquor (light yellow when it is lemon-flavored),
among our cups.

*******

OK, here I got called to our coffee ceremony for this aft. What I was
winding up to in the description above (wh did get rather long...) was
that the other day we were sitting (sort of squatting, actually) at our
coffee, when in walks Ada from the outside. These days, we usually have
our coffee in the service area, which is a row of mostly pleasant rooms
behind the house. In the daytime we leave the doors open.

So, in walks Ada. I was the one to see her do it, and I thought WOW,
she has escaped -- and returned --again, just like she used to do in
Calif [hahahahahaha "Calif-ferret-Calif-ferret" hahahahahHA]! I thought
she'd gotten out of the pen, which is way in the front of our compound.
But it turns out that probably she had been sleeping under a blanket
when the others were taken out to the pen. She'd gone out for a walk
while we were busy w our coffee and then come back again.

I would be tempted to just let them run loose in the compound since
there is a big stone fence around it, but there is a drain hole that
goes through the wall for the rainy season, and the cats use it to go
in and out of the compound. At first I wanted to keep the cats in, but
ensuring that was beyond my finances, and besides, I think cats need
freedom. Well, I think that of all of my animals, but the cats are used
to it, and I decided to let them have it.

Only Heema and Rauol want to go out, so far. At first they could get
out but not get back in. Raoul would come to the front gate and meow to
be let back in, and then I wanted to make a hole in the wall that was
big enough for them to use, but high enough so that the small dogs
could not get out. Given that the wall is about a foot thick, that
posed quite a problem. But a couple of days later, Heema solved the
problem by discovering the drain hole and Raoul found it too. We are
on the corner in a pretty quiet neighborhood.

OK, so we just now had our coffee, and during it we began talking
about Lemlem, Ababa's good friend and former neighbor for 30 years. We
talk about her often. She's in her 50's or 60's, and has an insane
brute of a husband, Berhe, who threatens her and beats her. Lately he
has been getting more abusive. He bought a knife and threatened to kill
her with it. She threw it in the shinta bet ( a hole-in-the-ground
toilet that most people have), but he bought a new one. She threw that
in too, and again he got another.

She is apparently unable to leave the situation. I have thought that
the answer might be for her to work with us, accumulate some money and
skills, and just have another main interest in her life. That would
give her some perspective on hr situation and perhaps give her the
strength to leave it.

We talk about this a lot here, including some black humor of how we
are going to dispose of Berhe. Lemlem often talks w some desperation to
Ababa. How to help is very tricky, as you can imagine. Upsetting the
balance could lead to more tragedy than good. So we are pretty
bollixed.

Berhe wants Lemlem home all the time and very frequently gets abusive
if she goes to visit people -- even visiting Ababa when Ababa lived
next door. Sometimes she can and does get out -- shopping for food is
"allowed," and probably church as well.

I suggested at today's coffee that we invite her to a small party we
are having tomorrow (Sunday), and we called her up and Yes (!!) she is
coming.

The party started out as a way to spend some time with our new dentist,
who is here from India for 6 months, but we have added a few other
people -- all women in their 50's - 60's, as it turns out.

Dr Mitra is a great guy, very talkative, and a little lonely for
philosophical talk. In his office we began talking about this and that,
and it made him very happy. I was delighted to have that effect, and we
all decided (Ababa and I were in the treatment room while Dr Mitra's
assistant was cleaning Sisay's teeth) that we should get together soon.
He's temporarily left his family and country to do some good in the
world for a while. He loves animals and gardens and wants to see our
animals, especially our ferrets. He's never seen a ferret and is eager
to. So we have been greening up the compound in anticipation of his
visit. Our visits to local nurseries are an email in themselves, for
later.

We went to the dentist because Sisay had fallen when putting up a
curtain for me, and hit a front tooth against a bottom tooth enough to
loosen it and cause pain. It turned out that the teeth were healing
themselves ok, and w a little work, Dr Mitra removed the pressure of
the pre-existing contact between the two teeth.

Speaking of Sisay (there are so many things to tell about life here!),
soon after I first arrived (01/11/07, I wondered if a romance was
starting between Tsige and Sisay. Ababa and Saba and I talked about it
and hoped it was true. Tsige was interested in Sisay a couple of years
ago, but apparently they never actually met.

Tsige has been working as a house servant since she was very young
when her father died and she wanted and needed to support her mother
and younger siblings. There are SO many stories like this one.

Tsige left her home area, Tigrinia (also Ababa's and Sisay's) in the
north, and came to Addis, and I believe she has been here ever since,
getting home to see her mother about every year or longer.

When I came here for last May-June, she spoke of how much she wanted
children. She is 36 or 37. I suggested we go to investigate artificial
insemination, and that idea did not repel her, but she said she wanted
a husband with the children.

Since there was no likely man in her life, we made up lots of silly
stories together, laughing over them a lot -- for example, about
pretending she had had a husband in Addis when she went home to
Tigrinia and pretending she had one in Tigrinia when she was in Addis,
but she really did want a husband.

So anyway, Tsige and Sisay "came out" about their romance the other
day, w some help from us. It was clear that one was happening, and
Ababa was convinced that they were uneasy about the household knowing.
So, as she told me later, she had been encouraging Tsige to spend her
nights w Sisay if she wanted to.

On Thursday, I took Tsige out for a jaunt around town w me and
Ababa -- just errands, really, but T is a sort of workaholic and spends
almost all of her time working in the house. After a long session at
the bank cashing a check from my foreign-currency account, I suggested
we stop for a bit, and I would treat for coffee.

After we had settled in, I said (w some trepidation abt meddling, and
not knowing that the subject had already been opened recently between A
and T), "So Tsige, what do you think about Sisay?" After a micro-beat
of hesitation, she said that S had headaches, all on the right side of
his head. I asked myself if I should go on with my path or follow the
one she had opened.

But next I said "Does he love you?" She said "Yes," and looked like
that was a good thing. I thought Good and showed it (gently). Then I
said "Do you love him?" And she said "Yes!" And I said "Wonderful!"
and for a split second wondered how to follow that up. I made a cradle
out of my arms and rocked it and said, "Then the babies are coming!"
Then we all rejoiced. Tsige and I were happily tearful w it.

 I hadn't told Ababa I had intended to do this -- in fact, I hadn't,
but it had seemed like a good and almost necessary thing to do.
Afterwards, Ababa said I had done a great job. Since then, Tsige and
Sisay are increasingly happy and relaxed. It's been since then that
Sisay has been joining us more often for coffee. And they say his
headaches have gone away!

Ok, that was a long digression. At the party we will also have some
other women in their 50's -- 60's, and we are hoping that we can come
up with some new ideas, especially about how to propose to Behe that
Lemlem work with us and circumvent his knee-jerk reaction to get into
a rage at the idea.

One idea of mine that I keep bringing up is that Berhe wd be tempted
by the idea of more money coming into the household, and that Lemlem
can reveal only some of her earnings and keep a good % of it here or
elsewhere. She already keeps some secretly with Ababa.

I am typing this in the ferret room (in the service area), where I
have made my office. It's time to plan the tables we will need for the
sewing machines, which will also be in here. The little fert devils
will love having us here, I am sure. We will need to take great
precautions to not step on them. For now I don't have to worry about
people being afraid of them, since it will be just me and Ababa and
Tsige and, I hope, Lemlem.

Possibly we will move the ferrets into the cat room and put the
quilting machine in there, since it might be only me that uses it.
My little semi-wild cats are getting tamer and should soon not need
their own room to retreat to. We'll see how it all develops.

*******

Sisay just came in to take the ferrets out to their pen -- it's late
aft and the heat has died down and a late aft breeze is up. We had to
extricate three that were sleeping in the cabinet/credenza I am using
for my desk.

To get my knees under the top surface, I open the doors on the side
that is shelves, and the ferts climb in to play and sleep as I work. I
have to keep the doors shut when I'm not here, so they can't climb up
to the top and mess w the equipment.

Of course as I work I have various fert interruptions. Some times I
rest one of both feet on the bottom shelf. Today Rico was determined to
take my left shoe away, so I finally let him. A while later, though, I
heard a persistent Chewing, and I had to take back the shoe.

Occasionally I realize that this is not a vacation, and I am so glad!
A frequent expat experience is to realize w dismay that living in the
new place pales drastically to being on vacation there. But I have
lived here before and have a family here.

I keep returning to the saying that Wherever you go, there you are,
but it does sometimes make a great improvement to change your
environment.

[Posted in FML 5878]