Surprise

Next week school will start after the 3 month Summer holidays. The children are not aware yet, carelessly playing outside.

Ahmed came by yesterday morning early. The calculator I passed on to him (a 10 year old gadget I received at the bank) did not display completely the figures anymore. I had a look at it and found that the tape connecting the display board to the rest of the device was broken. Told him I couldn’t repair it.

He was not astonished, but sad. It was working fine, he told me, until his grandmother shook it firmly. It was her who broke it. He will ask her for 100 SYP to replace it (the Euro = 67 SYP today). And then I have to go to Belgium to get one.

Life can be so simple.
And full of surprises, when you live here.

Instead of a dog, there is a couple of I believe it to be partridges in the garden. Mohamed bought them when in the neighbourhood of Saladin Castle.

They arrived in a tiny cage. The next day, they didn’t stop picking the cage looking for a way out. These birds need to fly. Now, they have a bigger cage in the garden, but still too small, I find.

The male is happy with the cage, but the female isn’t. I wonder whether it is because she wants to fly or whether she is unhappy with the other one. She is the second wife after the first one got eaten by a cat. Her first husband got ill and died.

The advice is to keep them in a cage for a couple of weeks and then let them fly. I am convinced we have to do that. The question is : will they return. People like to hunt here and there are many cats.

We will see. I don’t feel like keeping them in their prison for a long time.

I just hope they won’t end up as breakfast during Ramadan in one of the villager’s home.

Ramadan will start in a few weeks (we’re enjoying the full moon these days). And you caaaaaaaaan’t eat nor drink anything at all during Ramadan, Ahmed says. Last year he joined in by skipping the meals, but eating candy and fruit the whole time.