STUFF

I don't like "stuff" . I hate having unnecessary stuff clog my house and my life. It is this hatred of stuff I don't need, along with budgetary constraints and an eagle eyed husband that I really don't shop as an activity on its own any more. In fact, the last time time I shopped for something I didn't need, I really didn't like the experience. I still like getting presents for people, but shopping because I have nothing better to do is out the window.


When I was living in Iowa, I used to patrol the aisles of the local fabric shops paying particular attention to the fabrics available for quilting. The colours and displays were really beautiful. I found myself buying fabrics for their beauty alone and not because I had a plan for a specific quilt. This lead to a rainbow of small amounts of quilting fabric that was folded neatly in colour order and looked at from time to time. Then, if I was planning to make an actual quilt, would I incorporate these beautiful scraps into it? No. All new fabric had to be purchased adding more and more remnants to my growing "stash".

There seems to be culture amongst quilters where having a large stash of fabric that will never be used is a good thing. Some women actually have a sewing room. A whole room dedicated to sewing! There is a little envy here as far as having a sewing room goes, but then these women have these sewing rooms filled to the rafters with sewing materials that will never be used in their lifetime! Naturally this varies from person to person but nobody seems to think that this is wrong. I don't want to give quilters a hard time, they are mostly wonderful, generous and kind hearted women. The desire to accumulate bleeds into other crafts and hobbies too.

Stuff can take over your life bit by insidious little bit. You'll wake one morning to discover that you need a bigger house to contain your growing piles of stuff. You've got a house that is bigger than you ever thought you could afford and you're

written in 2006 - another find in the drafts folder - this is still relevant.  I still hate stuff but we have more now.

Flushing

One of the great levelers is that we all need to use the toilet.  We all poo.  Every single one of us.

Those of us who are fortunate enough to have modern flush toilets have become accustomed to having the unpleasantness just go away with the touch of a button or the push of a lever.  Our human waste just goes away. But it doesn't.  We know that it goes into the sewer or septic tank.  What ever we throw down the toilet, goes there too.

When visiting the Greek islands we were confronted with a new rule.  The only thing that gets flushed is what comes out of our bodies. The paperwork that goes along with this bodily function goes in the little bin next to the toilet. So, you wipe yourself afterward and put the paper in the basket, not down the toilet.

My initial reaction was, "Ew!"  I'd rather it just get dropped after use into the darkness of the water and never be seen again.  I didn't want any further interaction.  But, as a good guest in somebody else's country, I did as custom dictated and disposed of the toilet paper in the bin rather than flushing it.  After a few days, I didn't even think about it.  I just complied.

The diameter of standard plumbing in Greece cannot handle paper.  Use the bin provided.  You get used to it.  Woe to the tourist who clogs the system by ignoring the custom.  I wouldn't want to be the cause of having to call the plumber out or the reason there is a back up of nastiness.

The benefit of this is that the seas the Greek islands I have been to have been fabulous!  So clean and unpolluted. I was able to contrast this with the water around Malta.  Same sea but different regulations.  The sea was much more polluted.

One of the benefits of only flushing what comes out of your bottom and not the paperwork afterward, is that very little else will be flushed.  No tampons will be made to disappear.  No condoms or ear swabs and certainly no moist towelettes.

See where I am headed with this?  The toilet is not this magical device that makes things disappear.  Flushed items do not just go away.  They go somewhere.  Biological waste will be managed.  It will be processed.  The other stuff won't.

A lot of the plastic will end up having to be scraped out of the sewers by actual people who are paid to do it.  Condoms, dental floss and disposable wipes are the big culprits in the sewer.  What doesn't get cleared out by those poor people, may end up on our oceans.

There are vast rafts or gyres of plastic in our oceans.   They are so large that they have names.

Please don't flush anything down the toilet that hasn't come out of your body or is actual toilet paper.

Written in 2010 and discovered in drafts this morning

Coptic Christians

My family and I have been regular visitors to Egypt for the last nine years.  We have managed to go almost every year since our first visit in 2006.  Sometimes we have even get to go twice!

In 2006 we visited Cairo and took a side trip.  The day we went was a special day.  I suspect it was first communion for little ones at the church.  I remember so clearly the beautiful voices of the children and the oily crosses on their foreheads as families tumbled out after the service.

During the past few years of turmoil in this part of the world there have been instances where churches and communities have been targets.  This week 21 Coptic Christians working in Libya were publicly executed by extremists.

These people were from a small community not far from where we have stayed while on holiday.

My first contact with a Egyptian Christian was in 2009 on a trip to Port Ghalib on the Red Sea coast.  We were staying in the Marina Lodge hotel.  We had a glorious time and made some great friends.  In the hotel there were a couple of small shops.  A dive shop, a shop selling papyrus, a perfume shop and a general souvenir and basic stuff shop.  If you need some gum, a postcard and a stamp this general shop was the shop to go to.  The shops only sold to the residents of the hotel and for the bulk of the time, they were empty.  I went in to buy postcards and stamps one evening after dinner.  I chatted to the young man running the shop.  He was very kind.  In his halting English we managed a conversation.  He told me that he was a Christian and showed me the discreet tattoo of a cross he had on his wrist.

When hearing about the young men who were beheaded, I shudder.  During the Arab Spring and the big revolution that they had in Egypt, all the tourists stopped coming.  The Marina Lodge closed its doors for a period of time.  I know because we were there again in 2011 and stayed across the harbour in the Crown Plaza Hotel.  We walked by the Marina Lodge and were really sad to see through the windows at the tables and chairs stacked up and covers over things to protect them from the harsh sun.  I wondered then about the young men who were running the quiet little shops inside the hotel.  They would have lost their jobs when the hotel closed.

I wrote this in 2009 - I found it in the drafts of the blog and have posted it today.  Still relevant