Paleoanthropology appears to have established that the early vestiges of human society or humanoid presence surfaced in Africa.  China, possibly may be a contender for that distinction.  Ancient Africa boasted an advanced civilization in Egypt where science and medicine vied with distinctly primal behaviours associated with societal traits reflected by tribal and clan affiliation.  China does its utmost to stifle those instinctual proclivities, resorting to yet another, more macro version of it, nationalism.

Slavery, the ownership and use of other human beings by those considering themselves superior, reflects an ancient culture, one that still has currency in Africa.  African villages were comprised of clan memberships that had gained for themselves reputations reflecting aspects of human behaviour; some were considered to be moderate, by nature and inclination, others viciously pugnacious.  There was always the danger of one clan of a tribe or an entire tribe mounting violence on another.  And the same held true of other primitive societies, like North American indigenous people.

Africa appears mired in its ancient tribal-clan antipathies.  The countries of Africa whose territorial lines cross haphazardly over and around, often bisecting traditional tribal territories, have added another degree of xenophobia to their usual cultural heritage of tribalism, through the imposition of nationalism, and territorial challenges lured and inspired by natural resources and human greed.

Women live lives of misery, where clitoral excision is yet another cultural expression of yet another human emotion; misogyny and control.  Men have power over women feeling themselves superior beings and women their useful underlings.  Just as animals are valued and herded in ancient practices of animal husbandry, so are women maintained as chattels, valuable for their child-bearing and -rearing natures.

The puzzle is that the very geography identified as having originally given life to homo sapiens, its predecessors and successors, exemplifies a broad society incapable of rising above its instinctual-emotional inheritance.  The continent is wracked by inter- and intra-violent conflicts.  Governments are generally comprised of dictatorial autocrats and society tends to be rife with corruption.

In many African countries another layer, of religion, has been laid over their values - from animism to Christianity to Islam.  Primitive expressions of animosity to those from other tribes who present territorial threats result in religious sectarian belligerence and violence on top of every other contributing factor to unrest and misery.

The torments of forced mass migration, deadly conflicts, mass rape, child abductions and slavery remain rife in the continent.  Advanced countries of the world, mostly from the Western democracies, have sent their humanitarian government agencies and NGOs in an ongoing effort to aid Africa - and the near and the far East as well - to little seeming avail.  Vast sums of treasury have been expended to the same cause.

And in a country like Egypt, with its fabled societally advanced history resorts to ousting an imperial, military-backed tyrant only to have yet another, theocratic dictator impose his will, while the nation declines deeper into backwardness, misery and poverty.  In Libya, one brutal dictator has been removed through tribal rage, and that same tribalism remains responsible for an utter lack of order and a proliferation of armed militias expressing the ongoing antipathies rife in that society.

In Mali, a president who has an advanced degree in astrophysics has been removed by a military coup, while a great swathe of the country has been taken over and is now controlled, through threat and applied violence, by Islamist terrorists.  Billions of foreign aid has poured into that country with the best of intentions to aid yet another African country to lift itself out of poverty and ignorance and despair.

To what avail?

One can only wonder how many people took that incredibly absurd line, "Love means never having to say you're sorry" from the film Love Story seriously.  And went so far as to base their intimate relationships on that meaningless bromide.  When in actual fact, love does not excuse one from respecting anyone's inner feelings.

If you love someone you make an especial effort not to cause them emotional strain, hurt feelings.  The unwillingness to cause hurt to anyone should in fact, motivate us in all our interrelationships, whether intimate or with casual acquaintances.  We should exhibit the courtesy of civil manners when dealing even with strangers because anyone can be sensitive to slights, unintended or otherwise.  How can we act differently with those who share our personal lives? 

Simply because you believe you love someone doesn't mean that you can run roughshod over their feelings.  In the belief that love erases all errors of judgement.  That no compensatory phrase seeking forgiveness for transgressing their psychical balance through accusation, insult, argument and anger is due.  There are civil ways of communicating and those civil manners should always be adhered to.

When the emotion of anger overtakes our normal reticence to cause harm to others we should be capable of attempting amelioration by expressing regret.  If you love someone, the soothing effect of an apology, heartfelt and delivered accordingly, is a necessary component to living in harmony with another individual whose point of view may not echo one's own.

Hurt feelings can rankle and resentment can grow on that fertile ground where misunderstanding and emotional misery can lead to actual antipathy and blame.  This is where, over time, and through an inevitable accumulation of such emotional trespasses relationship breakdown can result, whether it is between close friends, family members or marriage partners.

Pride in these circumstances has no place in a healthy relationship of equally-endowed and -respected partners where either one can experience disappointment and resentment, out of a clash of personalities, that could be resolved with the admission and expression of regret. 

Love means realizing when you have harmed the relationship and determining to apply the healing emolument of sincere apology for creating strained feelings and the withdrawal of intimacy. 

When we first met it was she who made the first move, a beatific smile beaming at me as she asked whether the little girl at my side was my granddaughter.  That child born to our daughter is no longer a little girl, and I am no longer her daytime caregiver.  And the woman who had greeted me so effusively, in such a familiar manner those many years ago no longer has the same physical appearance as she had back then.

Her face, the colour of hot coffee with its lively gleam has been washed lately of its vibrancy as though dipped in cream, and the appearance of healthy middle-age has been altered by the presence of numerous deep creases running along that familiar face.  When we first met I thought she was in the late stages of pregnancy; her midsection gave that unmistakable appearance.  But it was mistaken; her belly was certainly extended - hugely - but she was not pregnant.  It remains in that condition to this day.  I have never enquired, it is too delicate a matter, I haven't the right, nor the wish to upset her by such a question.

Back then, when we first met, she might have recognized something deep within me that echoed something in her.  I responded in like vein, warming to her immediately.  She had asked about where I was from: Canada, I said, born in Canada, though my parents were from Poland and Russia originally.  Jewish, I said to her, and she brightened, said she thought there was some Jewish blood in her heritage.  She was from Eritrea, or Sudan or Mauritius, I don't now remember and would be too embarrassed to ask her.

Several years ago she was very upset, telling me about some of her relatives back home, of the constant strife there, of those who had been killed - of her hopes that others would survive.  Last year she had a fright, her husband had collapsed and was diagnosed with heart problems. He was under doctors' care and was prescribed a medication protocol.  For months afterward he just sat vegetatively, recovering, at home, unable to work.  And then when he was well enough to work, he was unable to find employment other than an odd job lasting a few weeks here and there.  Of course I commiserated, and with feeling.

She never fails to ask about the welfare of our granddaughter.  She knows too how concerned I am about the well-being of our daughter, she of the volatile temper, and the lack of serendipity in life whose own employment, as a single mother with many responsibilities is as unstable as her psychological state all too often.

My friend lives quite a distance from the Salvation Army thrift shop where she works daily.  She commutes by a series of buses from her home over on the Quebec side to Ontario where her employment is, quite distant from the provincial borders.  She spends at least three hours daily travelling from home to work, work to home.  But she wouldn't think of looking for employment elsewhere; she enjoys her job, likes working for the Salvation Army.  And quite simply, rent is cheaper in Quebec.

We dropped by the Sally Ann thrift shop yesterday after running a few errands following our ravine walk.  She informed me than that her husband had suffered a heart attack.  He is resting now, at home.  She exudes uncertainty and hope in equal measure.  I sympathize and feel truly dreadful about her situation.  I wonder sometimes how we could help her, but I feel also she has no wish to have any assistance from us, that to offer anything would be to insult her.

Perusing the shelves, my husband found a number of books he took possession of, and I now have another book by Rohinton Mistry, Such a Long Journey, an author who has a magic way with words and describing human frailties and emotions.  Another by Ronald Kessler, The Terrorist Watch, and yet another by the mistress of the short-story form - Alice Munro, in Runaway.  Two Canadian writers sandwiching an American; two works of creative fiction and one non-fiction.

I always come away from my encounters with her feeling pensive at the very least, guilty for how we are able to live compared to her poverty and the circumstances in her life that tore her away from her original community, her heritage, the comfort of her culture.  I weep for her.  And I weep for myself as well, wishing some things in life could be otherwise than they are.

Do I have reason to weep, I wonder....

Yesterday was a busy day; one of the toilets in the house needed replacement, so my pre-retirement government-bureaucrat husband set about doing just that.  He had bought a dual-flush toilet, a one-piece affair awkward to move let alone carry about; heavy and difficult to grasp, unlike the others that can be taken apart and moved in sections.  But this one has a flush for liquid and a greater flush for solid waste, so it is more environmentally useful, as it were.

Although it was the toilet in the basement of the house that needed to be changed, because when my husband first installed it he hadn't noticed a hairline crack in the porcelain bowl, which over the years since had gradually widened and extended itself until it completely wound about the interior, although it hadn't reached the point where it leaked.  Likely not much chance of that since it was double-walled, but we thought it best not to leave anything to chance and replace it.

It isn't used, down there, nearly as frequently as the one on the first floor, in the powder room where the iris-and-lily stained glass window is installed.  So my husband determined he would take out the existing, perfectly good toilet from there and replace it with the new, alternate-flush one, and put the powder room toilet bowl downstairs in the basement bathroom.  Easier said than done, of course, but it was done.

We interrupted the proceedings long enough to take a ravine walk, enjoying the appearance of the trees, liberally ice-covered and frosted with snow, dripping on us as we proceeded.  When we returned my husband shovelled the driveway of its overnight burden of ice and snow.  After which, he set about baking a rough-grain bread for me, the only kind I enjoy eating.

Years ago I shopped regularly at one of the big-name supermarkets that kept a large receptacle out in its capacious waiting area out front for the collection of foodstuffs destined for the local area Food Bank.  I felt good about regularly depositing staples that people in need could rely upon as a nutritious source of protein, carbohydrates.  That didn't stop us from sending cheques to the local agency operating food banks; it simply represented another opportunity to aid those needing assistance, and we could afford it.

When we began shopping for our food at the-then-new supermarket that had a focus on food staples at prices far better than mainstream supermarkets it was located in a tight-fit-space.  Although I had approached the manager, asking him to consider placing a receptacle at the front for the collection of food bank staples he was disinterested in following through.  Citing lack of space primarily.  I continued to shop there, and usually the store took part in large food drives or a special drive leading up to Christmas, but nothing more regular.  I had written an email to the main operation but these were franchises, making their own decisions, I assumed.

Last week I was amazed to see in the very large foyer of the same supermarket, now relocated to a far more spacious purpose-built building, that old familiar receptacle inviting supermarket shoppers to deposit food items for Food Bank distribution.  Sometimes in-store personnel are hard to catch, but I stopped a young man whom I've often seen around and had become accustomed to acknowledging, to ask him whether this would be a permanent installation.  He reacted as though he hadn't noticed the receptacle out front, but said he fully approved of it, which was not my query.  He said he had once been in the situation where he needed handouts from that venue, and as a devout Christian he supported it.

His response took me rather aback, both for his casual overlooking of its presence and his assumption that only those with religious persuasions - of whom I am not one - would be devoted to, and involved with aiding the unfortunate within society. 

When, later, I did see the manager (one other than the original I had approached) he himself didn't know whether the presence of the food collector would remain in place beyond the winter month leading up to Christmas.  Leaving me rather perplexed; as a franchise operation who makes those decisions?  I informed him that as a loyal long-time shopper at this particular store (which he was very well aware of, having seen me regularly, weekly shopping) I would very much value the permanent installation of a food-bank collector.

He would convey that information, he said, upward...

Driving along the National Capital Region's Eastern Parkway is always fascinating, the scenery beautiful, from sightlines along the Ottawa River to the installations along the way; the RCMP horse paddocks, the areonatucal museum, the parked small private aircraft sometimes lofted above and close to the roadway as they lift lightly in and out of the grounds, and the beautiful specimen trees; sweeping grassed areas leading down to the river.

As we passed the paddocks there were no horses out yesterday, a cold and blustery day with large wet clusters of snow clumping up the environment and becoming thicker and more insistent under a lowering sky.  The paddocks were crammed with Canada geese squatted there busily pecking away at, one imagines, the grains in the equine scat, among other delectables. 

All the birds assumed the same concentrated stance and were numerous enough and close enough as we passed to present quite the panoramic scene of peculiar-seeming oblivion to the weather.

The Ottawa River is not yet frozen, the water was dark and oddly turgid in appearance, though later, before the snow thickened and socked right in there were so many black wavelets on the water they resembled a grater with the regularity of the waves, looking rigid and concentrated, responding to the atmosphere and the conditions.

A thickening white mist began to float over the water like ectoplasm, finally encompassing it to such a degree that, meeting the thick clusters of snow falling from the lowering sky, visibility was so limited that the river itself disappeared from view.

He is simply unable to contain himself.  In the sense that would enable him to put something away for presentation at a future, suitable, appropriate date.  Say, for example, assiduously shopping around to find a gift that would represent his unequivocal sense of informing the giftee how appreciated they are. 

It's a difficult thing to do, since emotional closeness is demonstrated in other ways.  Love is not bought, nor are symbols of love or symptoms of that state; they are aptly given life by gestures, touches, whispers, and obvious intimate manifestations of dedication to the loved one.

Of those my life has been amply rewarded over the years. 

And now that we are both approaching our 76th year of life, he was faced with yet another dilemma; wanting to gift me with something special, a thoughtful item that might convey to me how much he values our having shared our lives and our love.  He always gets restless this time of year as the date of my birth draws near. 

Last week he explained forthrightly that he was going out to poke around local jewellery shops to see what he might see.  I expostulated as I have in the later years of our lives that I need nothing, want nothing, have more than ample of everything that anyone could wish to own.  A waste of time, anxiety, money to go out and conquer his need to provide me with yet another gift of his timeless esteem for me.

I knew when he returned that he had been successful in his quest.  I said to him that he had that Cheshire grin of satisfaction.  To which he responded that he had every intention of transferring what he had bought from his possession to mine at the earliest possible moment, and he had decided that moment would be last evening, after dinner.

Handing the bag to me, I withdrew the gift-wrapped package as he insisted I unwrap it.  Watching carefully for my reaction as I slowly unwrapped the box, withdrawing a jewellery case, opening it to discover another of the very same item he had chosen for me last year.  Now that was a surprise, and my facial expression surely gratified his choice. 

There will be another gift for me on the very day itself of my birthday, weeks hence.  It will be a birthday card of unusual dimensions and design that he will have undertaken himself to skilfully produce, to provide me with yet another in a long line of such idiosyncratic manifestations of my place in his heart.