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]