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]