In the aftermath of Tabaski – or Eid al-Adha - we had a couple of pairs of sheep horns boiled in Dakar so that the stuff from inside the horns would come out. This was the easy part of the process and now the idea is to make some new snappy objects out of them, but preferably without the accompanying smell! Washing the inside of the horn with strong tea or beer are the suggestions we have come up with so far, but somehow I doubt the effectiveness of these methods. We already tried bleach but the horn aroma still triumphs…  How on earth did the cupper get rid of the smell of her cupping horns in the old days? Or did she? If you have any ideas – preferably based on experience – please help!

 Somewhat belatedly I’m wishing you all a very happy, inspirational and bacteria-free New Year!

I’ve been off line for the past weeks firstly because of my trip to Senegal and secondly because I fell ill upon my return home. I caught a typhoid fever, which is a life-threatening illness caused by bacteria. It is typically passed from person to person through food and drink or by drinking from contaminated water supplies. The bacteria multiply and spread to the bloodstream and cause high fever, headache and other nasty symptoms. After a week in isolation in the hospital with impressive daily doses of antibiotics and paracetamol intra vena, all the every day trivia at home and small errands here and there simply seem delightful now!

Sandra’s love letters – or parts of them – are now hanging on our wall. Sandra, the former tenant of this apartment, had abandoned her old PC in the corridor, apparently in the hope that it would somehow evaporate and disappear forever. I volunteered to carry it down to the street rather than have it gather dust in our corridor for all eternity. I only wondered whether she had emptied the hard disk and when I asked her, she said that there was nothing in the first place - ”only love letters.” So we removed the hard disk and dissected it and took out all those colourful plates with tiny soldering seams and transformed them into an artistic apparatus…    

Yesterday I went to see my ten-year-old godson, who just like all the ten-year-old boys is now having a well earned summer break from school. His mother had put on the wall some of his drawings, one of which I now proudly present to you here. Considering his age, I think this is quite fantastic piece of work!  

Recently my laptop was contaminated with a virus and now it seems that there are hidden organisms slowly taking over all life in the house as well.. No wonder I had a flu and all sorts of oto-rhino-laryngal problems about 26 times last winter. I know from my previous doctor, who is Kongolese and specialized in sports medecine, that there are all sorts of fungi around us all the time and only the more vulnerable of us create a more intimate relationship with them. In my case the fungi had neatly settled between my toes and because I had most likely got it from the same gym in which my doctor too was a member, he was not able to hide his disgust very well. When I wanted to show him my athlete’s foot he quickly shouted no! no! no! and took a book from the shelve and showed me pictures of other victims that the medicine had catalogued. I pointed out from the book which one of the fungi in impressive colours looked closest to what I had – and got a prescription. In a week’s time the thing was beaten.

But what is the medicine against mold in the house? There are hundreds if not thousands of discussion groups and help forums on the topic. I almost forgot that my sister – who lives 3000 kms further North - has herself trained her dogs to professionally sniff dangerous humidity and fungi in buildings. Well, there is no longer need for fungologist dogs or any other specialists – the evidence is in front of you and our remedy against it is to move house, the packing starts tomorrow.

mold_1.jpg      mold_2.jpg      mold_3.jpg

At the age of 25 to 30 I think at times I was somewhat frustrated with the fact that when I had to look for a job, I had to squeeze my CV to look like an orderly cronological presentation of achievements and important events. My life certainly had not followed any linear pattern – and still doesn’t - and ever since the secondary school I had done many things simultaneously and in no particular order. Trying this and that job and being undecided whether to study or not was not good marketing in job interviews and the strange gaps in the chronology of my past always required further explanations to anyone who wanted to see a personal history in neat lumps.

I have no other explanation for this than perhaps my being subconsciously influenced by and drawn to actions that can be defined better by Kairos, at the expense of Kronos. The former is a non-time that absorbs you, a dimension in which you can experience your passion for something. The latter then is left-brained and analytical, ordinary time that is measured by clocks and calendars and builds on schedules.

Kairos was the Greek god of the “fleeting moment”, an opportunity offered to anyone who was able to see him and grasp him “by the forelock”. Lysippos carved Kairos in bronze with the following  epigram by Poseidippos:

“Who and whence was the sculptor?  – From Sikyon.

And his name?  – Lysippos.

And who are you?  – Time who subdues all things.

Why do you stand on tip-toe?  – I am ever running.

And why you have a pair of wings on your feet?  – I fly with the wind.

And why do you hold a razor in your right hand?  – As a sign to men that I am sharper than any sharp edge.

And why does your hair hang over your face?  – For him who meets me to take me by the forelock.

And why, in Heaven’s name, is the back of your head bald?  – Because none whom I have once raced by on my winged feet will now, though he wishes it sore, take hold of me from behind.

Why did the artist fashion you?  – For your sake, stranger, and he set me up in the porch as a lesson”.

Not only have I experienced a few moments of time vacuum in the near past but I must be also living in a continuous spatial vacuum. I know for instance that the Ethiopian Millennium is only around 100 days away, but repeatedly forget the local holidays. Again I planned my comings and goings for the day supposedly in a very efficient way but my purposefulness was wiped away the minute I stepped out of the tube station: all the offices and shops are closed, it’s a public holiday - again! And you feel like a complete idiot who has just been thrown on Earth from some other dimension…

It’s a little hard to follow the Christian - or Gregorian, to be precise - calendar by simply looking out of the window and by measuring the noise level of the traffic and people, because the neighbourhood where I live is maybe 80% Moslem and everything runs normally except on Fridays. And working at home has this disadvantage (?) of not having the colleagues with big families around and who always know the approaching holidays weeks ahead and schedule their lives accordingly.

Now maybe it’s time to refresh my desktop with a calendar? I will come back soon with a new entry on kronos vs. kairos – two very different ways of looking at or being in time. I have adapted myself to the latter, while it often seems that the rest of the world is forcing us to think in a linear and chronological way…  Oh, and here’s a link to a lot of stuff on time: calendar and time database.

One more note on cows and other four-legged creatures… Miina Akkijyrkka, a Finnish artist, has painted and sculpted cows since long and her big cow paintings are quite spectacular. Mental note of the day: as a heavy consumer of milk and other fairy products I should follow her example and maybe write an ode to cow or something.

Some animals fascinate me more than others. In the African context this means that I would much rather have a walk in the bush and meet with a meerkat family or watch how a vulture finishes a carcass, than to have a four-wheel ride after lions and elephants. Besides, animals are somewhat difficult and often quite dull objects to photograph. Here is one pic though that I like quite a bit, we surprised this fellow having a nightly walk in the back yard of our hotel. Makes a nice wall paper doesn’t it?

My sister was shocked to see this picture, taken in a meat market in Harar in Ethiopia, much to my amusement because I am myself much more uncomfortable with seeing the disgustingly smelly processed stuff like raw meatloaf or ugly sausages that hang in a butcher’s window. I like cows a lot actually – they have such lovely big eyes and those eyelashes! And their hide comes in nice patterns.

In one of my summer jobs I used to herd beef cows and one of my responsibilities included moving the lot from one area to another. It was a tricky thing to do especially because of one nasty bull whose eye lashes I free-willingly ignored… On the occasion I always had to protect myself from his horns with a cow shield: I walked with Lisa under my left arm and carried a base ball bat in my right hand. Lisa was a very gentle small white cow that the farm owner’s little four-year-old daughter used for cow back riding. The bat came only as a precaution to give a firm pat on the bull’s head every time he decided to become too friendly. Luckily, most of the time, Lisa proved to be the best protection ever needed.

A friend of mine showed me today how to make tagabino out of shiro and onions – this is one of my favorite Ethiopian dishes. You just fry quickly a couple of onions in olive oil or butter in a casserole together with berbere and fresh green chili, then add some water and tomato puree (or fresh tomatoes why not) and mix in some shiro flour to make it thick and smooth.

Enjoy with any kind of bread. Simple, cheap, hot and tasty!