Meow

At 5am I hear Christy get out of bed. (We have bunk beds) She’s convinced she hears a cat meowing inside our house. So she turns on the flashlight and scopes the place out but doesn’t find anything. I heard the meowing but think its coming form outside. “Christy, you are nuts! You probably just dreamt about it (our malaria prophylaxis,Mefloquine, has side effects of vivid dreams which we‘ve experienced).We haven’t let any cats in the house. Its 5am- go back to bed!” So she does. The next morning Christy heads to work as I’m still getting ready. I hear a meow, and its definitely coming from inside the house- under the bed to be more exact! I look underneath and there is a little kitten. Shoot, Christy was right! No wonder she thought it was coming from inside, the cat was about 10 inches away from her head! I move away our suitcases and discovered three more! Are you serious, we have four kittens living underneath our bed!? My first reaction was to leave them alone and head to work, I can deal with it over my lunch break. I‘m running late. “Um sorry, I’m late for work I have an infestation of kittens in my house.” But then I didn’t want these little guys getting into our food, pooping, and tearing up our stuff. Plus, what kind of predators are they going to attract? If they can get in the house, so can a snake that wants to eat them! I get out the broom and a dust pan and plop all four of them outside. Hopefully the mother will come back looking for them. When I came back from work for lunch two of the kittens were still laying in front of the house. I guess the mother took the other two home. Well, she did take them “home,” she jumped through the window with them and plopped them back underneath our bed! (our windows have bars over them but no screens) So this time I take the cats and plopped them REALLY far away from the house in some tall grass. Either the mother will find them or a hungry animal will. Sorry all you cat lovers, its the circle of life. So now I am paranoid about what’s going to come through our windows. Cats? Birds? Bats? Snakes? Iguanas? I take extra care tucking mymosquito net in at night. It’s the only thing that separates me from the bush.

A little update since I wrote this blog yesterday. The cats are back! Last night at 3am, the cat brought all the kittens back to our house.We heard her outside the window with them and chased her away before she could carry them inside! I’m not sure why she is attracted to our house, we rarely cook fish or meat in our house compared to our neighbors who prepare fish at least once a day. If we close the windows at night we’ll roast. If we leave them open I’ll live in a cathouse. I don’t want to be a “cat lady!”