North African Entrepreneurs - The Knife Guy

I'm constantly amazed by the ingenuity of our North African hosts, especially when it comes to work.  We live in a city of 18+ million people (depending on the time of year ... but that is another story) where jobs are scarce, education levels often minimal and the social net non existent.  There are no welfare offices, food banks, food stamps or homeless shelters.  If a person wants to get ahead they need to be entrepreneurial and make their own opportunities.

A person may have several jobs to make ends meet.  We know some government accountants that repair small appliances on the weekends.  Teachers drive tuk tuks or taxis at night.  Soldiers wash cars during their home leave.

Because the city is so dense and difficult to travel around, people love having services provided right outside their door.  Even better, brought right to their door.

Hence why there are a whole host of professions I've never witnessed in North America.

I'd like to take the next couple of posts to recognize these great individuals and the valuable services they offer.

First up, the knife guy.

Are your kitchen knives dull?  Do your hedge trimmers need a sharpening?  Have a huge hangnail?  Take them to the knife guy!  He typically walks up and down the street with his knife sharpening device yelling, 'SHARPEN YOUR KNIVES!  SHARPEN YOUR KNIVES!' (roughly translated)  For a very small fee the knife guy will collect them from your door, sharpen them extra sharp with his bicycle like sharpener and deliver all your knives back to you.

The guy in the picture above is usually found just outside our favourite Korean BBQ Restaurant.  He was very happy to pose for the picture after we explained how underrepresented his profession was in Canada.

Although I've never used your services thank you knife guy for serving us!

Sound of Injustice

The Lord loves justice and righteousness; the earth is full of his unfailing love.  Ps. 33:5

But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never failing stream. Am. 5:24

I've often wondered what does justice sound like in God's ears?

I ask about justice because I know what injustice sounds like,  I heard it clearly this week.

It sounds like the boom of TNT.

For the past several days we've been hearing enormous booming explosions as the government demolishes apartment towers illegally built on government land.  They have systematically imploding over two dozen such buildings.  The buildings were enormous, capable of holding hundreds of apartments, some of which were near occupancy.  They were on a beautiful piece of land near the corniche overlooking the river.  I'm not sure who built them, how they were able to get away with it or whether there will be any repercussions.  Unfortunately, we know several families that were victims of the fraud.

Our friend, Salam, is one such victim.

Together him and his brothers invested in three apartments and two businesses worth a few thousand dollars (an enormous sum of money for any family).  Everything looked legitimate in their eyes; the paperwork, the foreman, and the construction company.  Then last week a policeman showed up and told them, 'This building is illegal.  We will move it next week.'  By move it he meant demolish it.

Salam's younger brother had the most to loose.  Running a small but successful mechanic shop in a crowded, run down area he had a dream to move to new location where foreigners would feel comfortable bringing their new cars for service and repair.  He invested all of his money in his dream.

When the police came he stood in the middle of his partially built shop, ripped his clothes off and yelled at the police to shoot him in his heart because the only way they were going to remove him was if he was dead.  Thankfully the police were able to talk him out.  Certainly his wife and four young kids need him alive.

Salam told me, 'We're not rich people.  We had a dream that we could live in such an area.  Now we know it was only a dream.'  

He also said, 'It's not about the money, well it is about the money, but its about more than the money.  It is about a dream.  Now that dream is dead.'

I heard the loud screams of injustice this week.  The only solace is that we know God heard them too.  

Community Cleanup

A few weekends ago there was a community cleanup organized in our neighbourhood.  We were surprised to hear of it, but excited as it demonstrated a hope for the future.  With the recent unrest in the country the general look of the streets has deteriorated.  The hills of trash on the streets have been broaching mountain status and graffiti covers most every wall (the girls' nursery school wall was painted over three times this week alone!).  To me the clean up represented a new pride in the community and the country as a whole.  So, we joined along with some of our friends and the small group of dedicated community beautifiers , brushing the dusty streets and sharing in the hope of days to come.

Here we are getting ready for the big clean.

Part of the clean up involved painting the sidewalk black and white.

The organizers handed our girls buckets of oil based paint.  Not exactly washable.  Afterwards they handed us buckets of gasoline to clean up the kids!

A majority of the clean up seemed to consist of sweeping large piles of dust from one side of the street to the other although they also removed a tonne of garbage and debris.

The girls were super excited to help in any capacity possible.

They were equally excited to watch and cheerlead everyone on.

Our friends' apartment building nearby  has a bit of an outside area so #3 tried out a bike for the first time.

Refreshment

Navigating life through one of the biggest cities in the world with three small children can be rather stressful at times.  Throw in learning a different language and culture, a struggling economy, increased crime, extremely high rates of sexual harassment and abuse (local polls indicated 99.9% of women have experienced and continue to experience sexual harassment and abuse), thick smog that burns the lungs, political instability, an extraordinary amount of time needed for daily tasks (sometimes I wonder if there is actually a local word for 'convenient'.  We certainly haven't needed to learn it yet!), weekends that are more intense, complicated  and dangerous than weekdays, friends and neighbours facing very real needs with no easy solution.....  sometimes it  can feel like life is being sucked out of you!

One thing we have learned in the past year and a half is the necessity of regular times to get out of the city in order to rejuvenate and refresh.  It brings us a whole new perspective once we have had a chance to breathe a bit and 'fill our tanks'.

Recently Daughter #1 and I had a chance to travel to the southern part of the country to visit our former language teacher who is now teaching there.  We had a lot of fun together and enjoyed the slower pace, warmer weather (it might be a tad too hot even for me once summer hits!), green spaces and friendly people.  We even had a chance to take a boat to a local village and have tea with a lovely family.  The women of the village have begun making various crafts to sell as a means of income generation for their families.  It was a wonderful time of refreshment and a great opportunity to see more of this country that we call home.

Kids in Context

Things our kids probably wouldn't say or do if we still lived in small town Canada:

- When playing 'house' with the dollies or putting on a puppet show there is almost always an episode of the power or water shutting off.

-When daughter #1 saw the olympic torch for the first time she asked if they were burning flags.

-Upon witnessing one of the frequent protests marching by our house daughter #2 asked why they weren't throwing candy.

- It rained.  Daughter #2 was so excited and started frolicking on the street and shouting "It's raining, it's raining, IT'S RAINING!!!"  Followed closely by "AHHHHH!!!  It's getting in my eyes!!!"

- Daughter #1 is regularly praying for the situations in Syria and South Sudan.

- When on our way to visit a new friend some of their first questions are, "Do they have an elevator?" and "Do they speak English or a different kind of English?"

- When singing Happy Birthday to anyone they insist on singing it in English, Arabic and Korean.

- After being  given a face cloth as a gift from a nearby store keeper, Daughter #3 proceeded to lay said face cloth gently down in the elevator and wordlessly kneel on top of her new 'prayer mat'.

- All three girls are experts at flagging down taxis

- Daughter #1 can confidently cross 3-4 lanes of busy traffic without a break in conversation.

-Daughter #2 can be found carrying around dog and cat treats just in case she comes across 'familiar' stray dogs and cats.

- Daughter #1 has asked to carry small toys around with her to give out to the street kids we come across daily.

- Everyone knows how to get to the flashlights in the dark.

- Daughter #1 no longer likes eating meat after repeatedly seeing animals herded in the street and then later hanging lifeless outside the butcher shop.

- Daughter #2 was flabbergasted upon seeing a water fountain at the Canadian Embassy.

- Daughter #2 was equally flabbergasted the one time our taxi driver stopped to get gas..."What is he DOING?!?!?"  Apparently she does not remember the gas station.

- When stuck in traffic the girls keep themselves busy by counting goats, sheep, donkey carts, horses, tuk tuks, stray cats, and 'Rapunzel towers'.

- The girls are quite comfortable squeezing five or six people in the back seat of a car however they are inept at figuring out how to do up a seat belt on the off chance there is one available.

G-Free Baking

As many of you know our middle daughter, Iz, has Celiac Disease, an autoimmune disease causing all sorts of symptoms when she is exposed to gluten such as that in wheat flour.  Our little Iz seems especially sensitive so we've made a concerted effort to keep our kitchen almost entirely gluten free.

This makes Christmas baking especially difficult with a lack of available gluten free flours where we live.  However, this year we made an amazing discovery; Cloud 9 gluten free flour from Costco.  No, we don't have a Costco so almost every guest of ours has been bringing a bag or two in their luggage.  We think a bag or two is a fair exchange for a few nights stay :)

We've already made some amazing treats.  We are so thankful to have had the flour this Christmas season.  We made and shared all sorts of cookies with our friends and neighbours.  The girls even sang Christmas carols as we delivered them much to our neighbours joy.

Nice chewy ginger snaps

Super sweet sugar cookies

Ava & her friend & our language helper decorating cookies

Our Zoo

Yet another post about our little zoo.   It is so strange as honestly we were never a "Pet" family in Canada and yet here we seem to have this magnetism to pets.

Here is our latest story:

Last week we were walking home from school when I spotted something strange in the bushes near our apartment.  It was a hedgehog (the irony of the fact that we located him under a hedge was not lost on me)!  There are no wild hedgehogs here and, based on our neighbourhood's stray cat and dog population, he couldn't have been in the bushes for too long.

We immediately decided to rescue him before he became someone's lunch.  So I reached down and gently rolled him into a paper basket Ava had serendipitously made at school that day and carried him home.

The girls were so excited to have another pet in the house.  Ava drew the top right picture of her holding "Pointy" as we started calling him.  Iz made the wonderful water-colour picture on the bottom.  Sadly, our new relationship didn't end well.  Pointy passed away peacefully within a few hours and when the girls woke up the next morning Ava informed me that he must have fainted and assured me he would wake up soon.  I had my doubts.

One of our local friends was so sad to hear of Pointy's passing that he resolved to take me to a local market to buy three tortoises to make up for the girls' loss.  The next day my friend and I made our way to a local pet market to make our purchase.  It was a crowded noisy affair.  The market was full of parrots, pigeons, lizards, alligators and fish of every kind.  Not really wanting three tortoises in our house I convinced our friend on one little feisty one instead.  

It's hard to see in the picture but 'Mrs. Slow' is about the size of my hand.  True to her feisty nature she loves exploring our house and peeing when we try to pick her up.  So far Edee has developed a special bond with her and regularly carts her around the house or gently holds her while watching cartoons.  

While out with the girls a few weeks ago we made another discovery in the bushes nearby, a praying mantis!  

This one is about the size of my thumbnail and we decided to leave her in the wild as we agreed mom wouldn't appreciate us bringing extra bugs into the house.  Nonetheless a very cool discovery.