Cat and rats

I realise that my last few blog posts give an impression that all is doom and gloom here.  There are light moments.

Living in the community I have had to accept some things which would be utterly unacceptable in a western society.  Top of the list is rats.  We are plagued with them.

One day I told my fellow teachers a version of the Pied Piper of Hamelin.  Stories are very rare here and are taken a lot more seriously than in England.  When I described how the rats were enticed away by the magic piping and then the children too, the teachers looked absolutely horrified.  I had to explain that it was not a true story.  In their opinion it is not a suitable story for children!

I am fortunate to have a proper bed.  My friend Pascalina sleeps on a mat on the floor.  The rats creep under her mosquito net and eat the hard skin on her feet.  I brought us both leather sandals when I came back from England last September.  The rats have made very short work of them.  They also eat any dirty laundry they can find, so that I have lost two skirts from my laundry bag.  In spite of the diet of clothes and human flesh, they are also very partial to the sacks of food which are stored in my bedroom.  When not eating they are thundering around all night long as they work off their substantial meals.

Usually there would be locally produced rat poison in the market, but it is no longer there.  Presumably the maker of poison has gone to the refugee camp.

One day a few weeks ago at school, I saw a cluster of children looking at something in the corner.  It turned out to be a tiny and very weak kitten.  I put the kitten in a quiet dark corner of the storeroom and after school I took her home in my bag.  I have named her Cleo, but up until now I still tend to call her ‘Kitten’ or ‘Kitteny’.  She has only one functioning eye, which is perhaps why she was abandoned by her mother.  The other eye is covered in a blue-ish film, so that it looks as though she has one green and one blue eye.  Maybe it is a cataract.  There is nothing I can do about this as there is no vet.  

Right next to our compound is a small dairy.  The owner very kindly lets me take a small amount of boiled milk for my new acquisition free of charge.  Presumably this is because I am a regular customer for their delicious freshly made yogurt.  On the rare occasions that we have meat or fish, I give her a tiny piece.

The first night of Cleo’s residence, the rats scarpered.  However the mewing of the kitten kept me awake instead.  Since then the rats have re-emerged, clearly realising that the kitten is too small to do anything to them.  Cleo now sleeps through the night, while the rats continue their broken feasting. 

One night a small rat died.  The next day I gave it to Cleo.  She was delighted with it, pretending that it was still alive, growling fiercely (or as fiercely as a small kitten can manage) and batting it around before consuming it completely, fur and all.  That is as close as she has come to catching a rat so far.

As soon as I come back from school, she rushes for my legs and starts attacking them.  Her claws and teeth are getting sharper, so this is going to have to stop.  My constant refrain is, “Good cats catch rats, not legs”.  Hopefully it won’t be much longer before she starts to fulfil her vocation as rat-catcher.

Animals here are generally left to be feral, even goats and cows.  Even though eggs and chicken are hugely expensive, poultry are just left to wander freely night and day, at risk of being caught by wild dogs or even humans.  It makes no sense to me in a place where so many people go hungry.

The children from the school are fascinated and often come back with me especially to see the kitten.  It is a completely novel idea here to domesticate a cat.  Perhaps the idea will catch on of domesticating animals.