African Cats

Wednesday November 4, 2009

Normally when one says “African cats” they are referring to large predator animals such as the lion, cheetah, or lynx. These animals do live in Burkina, though not as many as in the savanna of eastern or southern Africa. However, when I say “African cats” I am not referring to the lion, but to the house cat, which is much more common here. And I seem to have bad luck with these African cats. First off, Eloise (my cat) had kittens in September, one of which I gave to another volunteer, Kait, and the other I gave to a student here in Tougouri. However, this second kitten did not want to leave its home, my house. Even after giving it to the student, it kept returning to my house, somehow knowing where it came from, and would meow all night long, waking up the whole courtyard. During one of these times in the middle of the night, I spent 30 minutes chasing it around the courtyard by moonlight trying to catch it. Once I caught it, I put it inside my house thinking that it was hungry and would be quite once inside. But no, it just continued to meow and almost seemed to get louder if that was at all possible. So the next day I had a student bring it out in the bush far away so it wouldn’t come back and disrupt sleeping in the middle of the night. I might be uncaring to just have it sent away like that, but at least I didn’t give it to someone to eat. And it turns out that that student just brought it to his village 12km away. So one problem solved!

Now I’m having another problem with another cat. I think Eloise is in heat and her “boyfriend” knows it, because this strange other cat has been showing up at all hours this week, trying to approach Eloise. I woke up last night to a loud hissing near my head, which turned out to be this other cat hissing at Eloise. So I wake up and hiss back at this cat and it leaves me alone, at least for the time being. Then later this morning I got home from teaching and the strange cat is in my house! It had figured out how to use the window flaps Eloise uses to get in and out of the house. This will not do. As I come it, this other cat gets scared, as it should, and goes to leave my house by the flaps, in the process breaking a ceramic mug I had just bought. I’m just hoping this cat will not show up again tonight or more might get broken than just a mug!