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So from the litter of four we are now left with one puppy at home. We gave away two and Death claimed the third.  So we have the original brother and sister Krispy and Kreme and the new addition (to be named shortly by Taaw Holiyayam).  Astu got to Addis two weeks ago so it has been much spoiling with timely tasty dishes upon command, a sparkling house and much summarising and explanations of movies.

Unfortunately none of the kids (can’t continue to call them that as they are all grown up) are able to make it to Addis this christmas so it has been Hubby and I home alone.  We had planned to travel but as Uncle Pesseh says “cash does not agree with ledger”.  However it has been a restful time. And are we grateful!  Life is good, all the family is well and we are ever so grateful to Allah for bringing 2018 to a peaceful close.  We look forward to 2019 with hope and optimism and feel gratitude for 2018 and before.

Season greetings to all.

I know mental health is becoming a more apparent issue each day.  Not a day goes by without reading about it or seeing a story that cites it as the key element in whatever unfolded.  I think most of the time I hide from myself as it becomes too painful to get into it all.  So I keep busy with work, with family plans and sometimes when the last two are not feasible with sitting in front of the screen and bingeing on favorite shows that have been recorded by the PVR.

At the back of my mind I wonder how today’s youth cope with it all. All the famous shows on TV show some super hero or witch with some magic power or other that makes all the difference in their lives.  How is a simple boy who has no wizarding powers suppose to feel about their lives?  How is a girl who cannot whip a wand or snap fingers to avert some catastrophic mess in a social setting able to see their true beauty and worth? What happened to simple hard work and the execution of mundane tasks, the completion of which gives a sense of satisfaction and a feeling of achievement?  Or do we expect that audiences will make a clear distinction between make-believe for entertainment and the building blocks to a fulfilled life?  If we do, is this a fair expectation?  Who will not daydream about having some power or other that makes life easier and how do we know that the impossibility of these dreams do not in themselves led to frustrations and ill-health?  I would like to see more movies that highlight the process rather than the result and that pay homage to everyday forgotten values such as hard work, sacrifice and effort.

Yet  even in writing this I feel like a hypocrite.  Quite apart from the shows that I watch and from which I get immense enjoyment, my wish to be in a country where I have greater access to more ready-made things that I can grab on the go appears contradictory.  However upon a zooming in to the reasons why I do, I discover an entirely different reason for this.  What I wish for is not only availability but affordability and accessibility as well.  Life can be so much harder in the poorest of places.  In order to keep to a basic minimum in a poor country one can end up spending more money than one would in a more developed country.  Take the availability of electricity for example;  in a developing country one can spend a fortune in ensuring that one has a steady source of electricity for everyday living.  Do not even get me started on access to the internet.  I know of too many countries where steady uninterrupted  access to these  will require a small fund!  For me I read  a lot and I heed a lot of statistics on development on my continent.  However until access to utilities, internet and avaialbility of choice of diet is a reality not just for a select few but for a majority of our populations in the continent, we cannot rest.

I had gone against my better judgement and adopted two dogs,a boy and girl from my in-laws’ house in town.  My kids were on their way to visit me and I thought it would be a nice treat.  They decided to discriminate along gender lines and the boy took the male dog as his and named him Krispy and the girl named the female dog Kreme.  As I expected they become my full-time responsibility as both kids returned to college and high school and I was left to feed, wash and generally care for the said dogs.  But generally it was nice to have them around and they kept me barely human what with the required tasks of feeding them daily, giving them baths once or twice a month and generally having someone else to care about and provide for in the house.

Without a proper regime and training they took to jumping on me every time they caught sight of me,usually on my way to car to go to work and when I return in the evenings.  Sometimes this behavior results in my having to go back in the house to change my outfit or having long red lines on my skin where their sharp claws have broken my skin in the passion of the hugs.  My husband took to locking them up whenever I was about to leave the house to prevent such casualties.  Our interactions became fewer but I had a general sense of responsibility towards them and would ensure that they were eating well and will give them a bath on one saturday of sunday during the weeks when I was in Addis and not travelling for work. I recall when the female one was lying around under the tables stacked in the garage and when I tried to pet her I noticed that her genital area was swollen and her eyes looked dull and she was not her usual frisky self and was instead happy to be lying down in the same spot and not trying to jump all over me as was usual.  I remember thinking to myself in my drive to work that she must be on her period and probably in pain or discomfort.  Lately she had taken to howling at night, something very unusual for our dogs. Generally they do not like being locked up and once fed and released to run about in the yard, are pretty quiet during the night unlike some of the other dogs in the area.  However for the past four nights the howling has been incessant.  Yesterday sunday, my husband told me the female dog had a litter of four.  He was apologetic and wowed that he will give away all the puppies and will ensure that the possibility is removed in the future.  I went to see the litter, ensured that the male dog was removed so as not to bother mother and puppies and tried to enclose the area they were in to give them a bit of warmth knowing how chilly Addis can get, especially in the evenings.  I make a mental note to take pictures to send to the kids as I know they would be excited to see the puppies.  As I sat in front of the TV vacantly looking at the screen, a stubborn smile tugs at the corners of my mouth as I  marvel at the simplicity of the inevitable and how easily it has all come to pass.  I also think of all the various steps that must have taken place for there to be a litter and wonder how I have missed all of the signs.  My husband already has his own theories and thinks the father must be one of the dogs in the neighbourhood as he says none of the dogs have the colour of the male dog at home.  I can only marvel at the suddenness of it all and somewhere at the back of my mind I keep having this thought that things will happen at the right time.  This thought is all the more powerful as it makes me realize that the right time for me is long gone.  When it was, I had my babies and for whom I will be forever grateful to God.  There can only be one right time and the present circumstances with a new marriage to a man who does not have any children of his own and who would apparently make a good father does not change that fact.  I for one know that not all children are born and can see my way clearly to adopting a child to raise as our own.  However man is made selfish and how does one start to think of taking care of another’s when there is still a chance of having your own?

I love the idea of satisfying a need, giving value and receiving the same.  Our motto at House of Fulani (THOF: yes we are tough) is Getting Satisfied by Giving Satisfaction.  There is no greater calling than being of service, service that brings a smile.  So for me it does not matter if I am able to do this by serving you a plate of food the warms your tummy and tugs at your heart, or an outfit that boosts your self-esteem every time you put it on to go to some office function or meet up with friends and family at some wedding.

This brings me to thinking of one of my all time favorite restaurants in Dakar called Chez Lucha.  Here the Jollof Rice, irrespective of what your choice is between meat, seafood or poultry, is always delicious. And there is enough of it always.  My late husband’s grandmother, whom we lived with upon getting married while I attended college and come back to my marriage on breaks, always used to say that a sign of true satisfaction from a meal is the fact that you left some in the bowl.  For her, leftovers meant that you were truly satisfied. I do not know how that will work with buffets and All You Can Eat restaurants.  Now, I cannot stomach food wastage and some  of the things I have observed in All You Can Eat resturants are irresponsible, to say the least.  If you want to know if you like a particular dish, serve a bit, taste it, if you like it, go for more.  But sitting with my girls in a chinese restaurant in MD, I cannot comprehend the wanton waste by some diners and the plates with loads and loads of food that the waiters are having to clear from some tables!  So in as much as I loved my grandmother in law and partly agree with her on this, especially in african settings  where the partaking of a meal is communal and the fact that all stopped eating because there was no more left to eat, is clearly an indication of inadequacy of the quantity of the food,  I am seriously thinking that diners in resturants should be charged extra for large quantities of food that they leave on  plates uneaten after having voluntarily loaded them from the serving stations.

Ah well, maybe we will lose a lot of customers from THOF when we implement this policy.  However I believe that your business should be more than just the bottom line.  It should also show your values and clearly spell out your social responsibility to our planet. So for now I work because like so many I cannot afford not to.  However I know what exactly I can do all day long and not feel like I am labouring.  The thought of having a chance to do this makes me get up early without the need of an alarm and keeps me up at nights thinking about a thousand different ways to add better value to a particular service. The future, laced with the dreams of possibilities of labours of love, is bright.