I've been through a rough few days, and though I'm past the deepest
part of the tunnel, I am still very sad. Eric, "the dancing one," is
dead, and Philippe, the ferret whose almost-didn't-come-to-Addis tale
I retold in my last email is missing, and almost certainly also dead.
Making it terribly worse is the fact that it was, to a large part, my
mistake that caused this.

But I'll tell you the whole story in order. [3 part post combined
here. BIG]

******

Well, I never got further with this note frm last week. We just lost
Ada this afternoon, one of my first ferrets. She died of a gastritis,
probably develped from the bone in the meal we have been feeding all
of the animals. Dr Dawit says he has seen it cause gastritis in dogs a
number of times. He believes that dogs weather gastritis more easily
than fragile animals like ferrets. He says that the problem is that
bone resists sterilization, and that it is no longer used in the US.
I think he also said it's no longer used in Europe.

Sadly, Sisay and Ababa didn't tell me right away when they saw blood
in Ada's stool, because they saw how upset I was over losing Eric and
Philippe. I've seen that part of the culture before -- to protect
people from what they see as unecessary grief. For example, the brother
of JOseph, the young man who is making my workshop furniture, died in
Qatar, an Arab emirate near Saudi Arabia abt two months ago . Somehow
the neighborhood found out about the death before the family did, and
they kept the news from the entire family because they knew there would
be considerable delay before the body would be released and they felt
that there was no point in such a long period of grief. They also made
all the arrangements to have the body released and shipped back to
Ethiopia.

Of course in my/Ada's case, holding back the news let the condition
progress till it was hard to save her. We thought we had done that
yesterday, but then she took a big turn for the worse in the afternoon.
She perked up again in the evening. Ababa and Saba had given her a
littlle "spirit water," which comes from a church not too far from here
and is said to have curative powers. Just after that, I began giving
her her amoxicillin, and she projectile vomited. After that was when
she perked up a little.

But she went downhill soon afterwards. I thought for sure she would
die that night, as did Dr Dawit. But she was still alive in the (this)
morning. Dr Dawit came over again, and he and I thought euthanasia was
the only good alternative, but Saba wanted badly (and surely Abeba
too, if she'd been there) wanted very much to "give her a chance."
Euthanasia is almost unheard of here, and you each probably remember
how upsetting the idea can be even in our case where it is a normal
thing to do. So we gave Ada her morning glucose and amoxicillin and
also some iron on the chance that she could pull through, though she'd
lost a lot of blood through her diarrhea.

Well, of course waiting was a bad decision. When that became too clear
to bear, and I phoned Dr Dawit, he was a few hours away at a funeral,
and couldn't come back until late afternoon. Even then, when he came
over and euthanized Ada, who was suffering -- she'd been "running"
with her feet for hours, maybe wanting to get away from the pain? -- I
forgot I should let Abeba be part of the decision -- the animals are
now "ours" -- even though I would have insisted in the end. Saba was
away.

At any rate, Abeba was very upset and she -- and Sisay, I think,
and maybe Tsige and Sisay's brother Kiros -- didn't believe in the
diagnosis. So we did a postmortem, right then and there, on the
ferret-room floor. I assisted. And yes, Ada's intestine and stomach
had little bleeding spots and tears, and apparently also a little in
the liver. Everything else was so wonderfully clean and healthy, and
I suppose that is how she lasted so long. It was grim.

I was sort of brought up a Catholic 35-40 years ago, and so I have
experience with the more ornate forms of religious expression and
also with the ideas of holy water and miracles, and in that way the
Ethiopian Orthodox church reminds me quite a bit of the Catholicism of
my childhood. Many holy days, elaborate clothing for the clergy, an
exended hierarchy, fabulous church art and buildings. However, at least
among the people I know here, it is practiced in a calm way. It's very
central to life, but it is not harsh or excitable, especially compared
to the Catholicism of my childhood.

Actually, I think what I experienced was extreme even for its day.
My mother would occasionally criticise our parish, which was run by
predominantly Irish Catholics, and declare that the Italian Catholics
were far more reasonable and knew how to enjoy life. She pointed to the
Italian church art, social life, wine, and food. Looking back, it looks
like a remnant of the old Boston-Irish/Boston-Italian emnity. The
Italians' wave of immigration followed the Irish one, and all four of
my grandparents were part of it -- plus the parents of the people my
parents and their sublings married. Except for the scandals of three
of them who married (sharp intake of breath) Protestants! Anyway, the
Italians compaeted for jobs the Irish had settled into -- mostly bottom
of the barrel emplyment, but still it was work.

Well, back to the present -- Lucy (who is now my only femate) just came
down the tunnel into the room and Sisay has been playing with her by
snaking the tarzansferrets tube at her. She's been dancing and playing
with him and the tube, also going into it and wagging her tail back and
forth as Sisay jiggles it for her.

The sewing project is going well as far as the teaching goes. We moved
from cutting into design around the time I last wrote, and I have to
give myself the credit for adding something wonderful to their lives,
at the same time as giving myself a freer rein with it. Everyone
(including me) has created a wall of design, mostly using the Michael
Miller Mirror Ball Dot fabrics.

Sisay came in at the end -- when I had given out almost all of that
great fabric, so his work uses different fabrics. And when those new
fabrics came out, most everyone else wanted some too.

The first phase of the intial creation was wonderful. I couldn't
believe the happiness and the new interest it has added to our
household. We all keep going back to our work and get just as engossed
as at the start. We are now toward the end of pinning the pieces to
the gobi cloth. (We're using soft white traditional gobi cloth, hung
against the walls of the three sewing rooms, to hold the pieces of
cloth that we're arranging to make our designs.)

Pinning all the little pieces isn't as much fun as the intial placement
of the pieces, but it lets you see your placement again, and we have
been adjusting, adding, etc as we go along with it. Everyonce in a
while someone gets a new creative spurt and usually it spreads. We
borrow ideas from each other as we work, and off we go.

Teberre, Saba, and I have made one panel each, and Abeba, Tsige, and
Sisay have each made two. The panels are about 3 and a half feet wide
and 5 to 6 feet high. Last night I got out my applique books. Applique
is going to be the first sewing technique learned, because we don't
have sewing machines yet (another episode in the Customs story, for
later). All of us looked at the books (except for Teberre, who
doesn't live here), and this evening Sisay has branched out from the
square/rectangle-piece format that I started them (and me) with, and he
has introduced circles amd arches to one of his panels. So of course
now that I see them, I need some in my panel! And I am pretty sure
some new shapes will start to appear on the others' as well. I set
the square/rectangle format when I thought i was teaching patchwork,
but now we are onto applique instead, and curves aren't a big deal in
applique.

I found sme more wonderful Ethiopian cotton in the Mercado (market --
and has the market ever changed since my first time here -- and it is
in the beginning of yet another change. Back in the late 60's/early
70's it was a mass of open=air stalls, and now it is a mass of small
shabby -- what can I call them -- one-room stores, open to the small
streets that run through the area. The streets are for from adequate
when the market is crowded.

The gv't (Federal, I believe) is tearing down these little stores and
making 4-story buildings, in wh people have stores in much the same
format -- one room, and open to the corridors. I'm not sure what
recompense is made for the people who lose their original stalls,and
whether they automatically get a space in the new buildings.

The gov't is doing something similar in the city as a whole --
replacing shanty stores and homes, whose main visible component is
corrugated metal, with spiffier-looking buildings. The people who
lose thewir homes and businesses this way are given money and a new
location, but I believe they are often relocated out of the city. I
get mixed opinions frm people as to whether the exchange is fair, and
I need to look into to it to get clear on it.

One thing that does appear clear just amazed me w/ the humanity of it.
Inflation ahs been rampant, w prices for basics rising 20-50% a year.
But the gov't has cracked down finally -- a couple of weeks ago, the
salt sellers got together and raised the price from something like 2
centimes to 10 centimes a kilo. This time the rise was so extreme and
so blatant that people went to the police. Immediately the gov't agreed
that was no justification for the price rise, and the sellers were
arrested!

The police told the people, and the gov't did the same on TV, that
whenever they see something like that, they are to go to the police
and report it. The price of bread also shot up recently -- not only
in price, but in the production of smaller loaves. The Fed gvt got in
there and made the sellers go back to the original prices and weights.
In addition, the F gvt has removed all of their own taxes on food. Some
of the rises are related to the increased gasoline prices, but plenty
are just a matter of gouging. I was amazed to see the gv't's rapid
involvement and esp to see them repeal their food taxes. Especially
since one of -- or perhaps the primary -- stated goal of the gov't is
to modernise and to encourage commerce here.

The number of large new buildings under construction in Addis is
staggering. It reminds me of, but is much more extreme than Silicon
Valley a decade or two ago when office buildings were being built left
and right and then suddenly there was a crash w noone to rent all that
new space. Here the need for housing and business sites is intense, but
even so I can't imagine how this could safely continue. Personaly I
hope there is some sort of downturn -- I can't afford to buy a house,
nor to rent what I want/need here in Addis, even in an outlying area,
for living and the business.

The Fed gv't gives plots of land to investors, whether domestic,
foreign, or joint ventures -- such as I am now involved in. The plots
are small, but my business can include a plant/tree nursery, and I am
going to make my/our request for land based on that.

Until last week my buisness was a wholly-foregn-owned one, but we have
decided to make a partnership of three, at least in name and on paper,
of me, Abeba, and Saba. It's too late to describe the ins and outs of
it now, but it should be a good thing and a protection for me. No
protection's needed at this point, and there's no threat of it seen in
the future, but listening to my friend Craig in Thailand, and reading
websites there has convinced me to set things up now as a "just in
case" manouevre.

BAck again to home life -- a week or two ago I bought a rather large
drum in the Mercato. It's a kind used in church ceremonies, and is
about a yard high. It is sort of cone-barrel shaped. It's made of wood
and has cowhide striking surfaces on each end. The sides are covered
with a traditional cotton for church drums w red and blue w flowers
on it. The large striking surface is abt 18" across, and the other is
abt 6".

It has added something good to life here at home. Apparently many
people know how to play church drums, and Sisay and Tsige and Abeba are
quite skilled at it. We all play on it, and people who come over do
too. I wish I were more musical and could describe it in musial terms.
It has a highish sound at the small end and a lowish one at the other
end. It is fairly resonant.

It cost abt $40. There was a truly fabulous one that was abt $100, and
I do wish I had sprung for that one. It was very resonant, w a lower
pitch. Maybe later. But meanwhile we are enjoying ours a lot.

Right now, Sisay is playing w Lucy and Jonas and Artie w the tube, Lots
of dooking and dancing. It is such an odd experience to be mourning and
distracted enough that watching this happiness is painful as well as a
joy. I am just .. I don't knowe how to describe it. That I wont see
them again.

The ppresent gets bonkered bythe past. Sort of fractured.

Well, I just reread this and I see I forgot to finish wahat I was
saying about the new white cottn fabric. I am not sure, but I thik it
resembles serge. It will be the background ,material of the applique
work. I think it will be geat, but maybe it will be weird?. It is more
flexible and thicker than quilting cotton and quite diff fr the fabric
we'll be sewing onto it. On the other hand, it is not stretchy. It's
factoey made, but is the same sort of thing as traditional "coffee"
dresses are made of.

I am getting frustrated w not having pix available for you. A friend
sent me a site for a do-it-yrself blog creation. That's got to be my
next project or else I will look at sites that just show pix.

We finished redoing the carpeting on the fert tunnels. The tower for
the water tank is being built inside their outdoor pen! For some reason
the best place for it was where we located the pen. We have lost water
almost every day this week, so I am glad we have this water-tank
project underway. Te ferts will enjoy digging around the legs of the
tower. The legs are deep into cement -- at least a yard -- maybe two --
under ground.

Now we have to throw out all the bone meal, etc. and go back to home
made recipies. Luckily I have some. I bet the meal will make great
fertilizer. I'm getting excited about my new idea of starting a
nursery.

And more urgently intent on the vet lab and clinic. Dr D just canot do
a complete job without it. Not to mention all the other vets in town.

Can any of you recommend vet labs that can give me info about what is
needed? And/or who might b willing to contribute some equiupt and
expertise?

******

It's the day after Ada's death. She was our little princess -- tiny,
white, and mischievous. She looked you right in the eye too, w a dear
pointy little face. Little imp-y woman. I had her for abt 4 years, and
she was important to my life through the whole time. Quite a hole in
it now.

Ada was easy to identify, being our only truly white ferret, and the
only one w really reddish eyes. That made it easy for everybody to get
to know and love her, plus she was almost always the first or only one
trying to get out of a door whe it opened a crack. We couldn't let her
run around the livingroom because, after the first couple of times, she
discovered she could flatten herself enough to get out under one of the
doors.

Sisay usually brought Ada out when guests wanted to see a fert. The one
time I had ferts in my bedroom at night, after I shut the light she got
right in my bed -- and later bit me, in fact. Perhaps she didn't know
that all of the big body in there was me. After a couple of reprimands,
she understood and just burrowed around and slept.

When she was very sick and I brought her in there in a carrier (rather
than leave her in a fert room where the others might bother her), she
managed to come across and get into bed. No biting that time. It's just
a foam pad on the floor -- I still haven't gotten my bed through the
customs procedures. Anyway, there it was, nighttime and in the dark,
and I was very sad since she was so ill, but still had hope for her
recovery, though she had spent almost all day lying down. Then I heard
a scritch scritch scritch, and then felt it in the bedding, and soon
she settled down.

Dr Dawit had shown me how to give a subcutaneous injection from the
intravenous bag. She hated it, and would go hide in the fert tube
afterwards, even though it is transparent. She had the injections for
two days and then again on her final morning. I could do the job, but
it was creepy for me, punching through her thick skin with the big
needle.

Even on her last night, when she was really very sick, and I had her
there on the bed, she got herself away from the bedding in the middle
of the night or early morning, needing to release diarrhea and blood --
but wasn't able to get back to the clean bedding. Poor poor little
thing. That was the morning when I decided to let her go, and Dr D came
and agreed w me, but we mistakenly gave her one more chance to rally.

We all loved her and shall not forget her. You probably remember
what an enthusiastic escape artist she was in Calif? And perhaps
her conversation with the skunk under my house? And how I could ask
big-dog Dante to go to find her when she escaped and how he would hold
her firmly and gently down w/ his gigantic paw? She was such a sight
when she'd go up to Dante, who's a big Golden/Husky/G-Shepherd mix,
and look him right in the eye. Dante would sometimes just turn his
head away a little, w his ears down, showing his respect.

Well, more about escapes: There was no happy ending here last week
when Eric and Philippe escaped -- a door was left open, and I thought
someone else had counted to be sure that no one but Ada had darted
out, but I was wrong. Eric was run over by a car, and we do not know
about Philippe. This is a suburb, not the country, and a confusing
place for a fert to find himself after scampering though a drain hole.
How could they find the hole again?

What misery to lose them, not to mention to carry most of the blame
for it and probably a hard end for each of them. They were wonderful
creatures. Eric was in everyone's heart here. He was a very merry guy
and a darling enthusiastic dancer. He'd start suddenly, tossing his
head to one side and throwing himself around on his tiptoes w his legs
outstretched. We could get him going in an instant, and he would get
the others going too. When I lost him, it felt as though all the joy
had gone out of the group, but of course that's not so. Lucy and Jonas
are merry makers, and Artie too. Robert and Rico join in too. Philippe
was my good buddy. Lots of history, including getting him fr Carolina
Ferrets. His antics weren't remarkable enough for the household to see
him as special, but he was. And his astonishing turnaround about
attacking Lucy. Did he know he had to shape up or be shipped out rather
than coming w the family to Ethiopia????? He was a shoe chewer all his
days, and full of a sort of dogged enthusiasm.

The midpoint of the pre-Easter 55-day fast was yesterday, and marked by
eating sprouted beans -- I think they are soybeans. Easter week arives
later than in the US -- Ethiopia uses its own calendar The year starts
in Sept and we are in the year 2000. The new millenium was a very big
event here.

Anyway, Easter week is a series of big events. I think it starts w what
we, as Catholics, used to call Palm Sunday. Then we had Ash Wednsday --
I forget if there is anything the same here, but Teberre came on Sat
(only day before yesterday, amazingly enough -- feels like 2 weeks) w a
series of ochre-colored clay/mud wide lines at her hairline, and maybe
it had something to do w the church. Teberre is the woman w the 14 yr
old boy -- Hafetom -- I got cured of e pylori, etc. It is so fine to be
able to do seriously good things, and a relief too -- the old pervasive
guilt is assuaged. But mostly it is a joy to see a sick person well and
gleaming w health after seeing them sick and wasted. Plus it is so easy
and natural to do -- people constantly appear in my life through the
big social worlds of everyone in the house, and if I see a need and
want to help that person and feel comfortable w them, I make an offer.
Actually, it's mainly been the people who live here, but I've given a
hand to a couple of others as well.

We are working on devising replacement foods for the animals -- weaning
the ferts off the meal and back onto a chicken diet. And we have begun
feeding the "bad" food to the plants.

Now Abeba and I are going to get a bus to a "supernarket" to get
canned-fish catfood. Ferrets love fish, but too much is bad for them.
We'll be adding fish to the chicken for now to get them "weaned onto"
it. We've found that we can't eliminate the meal altogether, so we
shall be weaning them off of it.

[Posted in FML 5929]