I finally caught the cat. For those of you who don’t remember, there has been a black and white cat that has been plaguing me ever since my arrival here in Kenya. Initially, it was like a pet of the other volunteer. She would feed it and a second cat that also used to hang around. Unfortunately, that black and white cat was a nuisance, as she would make this high pitched mewling sound regardless of how much you fed her. When the other volunteer had left, I would chase it away by throwing things at it. It would indeed run away but like a battered woman it would come back for more abuse. Then, I thought if I just fed it once in awhile it would shut up and be grateful. That just made things worse. Finally, I decided to eliminate the problem. The first time, we rid ourselves of the cat, one of the guards had taken it to his home. The stupid cat came back to continue bothering me and have things thrown at it.
When I knew I would not be rid of it in any conventional way, I decided to trap it and give it to one of the guards who figured he could use it at his home to trap pests. Animals in rural Kenya are only kept for utilitarian purposes. There is no such thing as a pet around here. Anyway, now I had a plan in terms of how to get rid of the cat. The first time I caught it, we wrapped it in a towel and tied it up. It escaped and came back to the compound. The second time, we stuffed it into a box, taped it shut, tied it closed. And somehow she escaped again. As I had explained to Marc, the overall medical director, I am the cat’s catcher not its keeper. I was able to trap it again using the same techniques, but this time I was the stupid one to let it slip though the door when I had gone back into the cookhouse to stuff it into a sack that I finally procured. Now, the cat was getting quite weary of me. She would still meow that stupid high frequency cry of hers, probably just to annoy me, but she would not enter the cookhouse to be trapped anymore, no matter what type of bait I used – bread, milk, brownies, popcorn – nothing would make her come into the cookhouse of doom. Finally, a few days ago, I tried to feed her some milk in a bowl outside. She wouldn’t run away from me which was an interesting development in itself. And so I was able to give her the milk outside and maintain her attention by continuing to pour milk into the bowl. With my left hand, now covered in an oven mitt, I was able to grab her and throw her into the cookhouse very quickly shutting the door. At the time, I did not think there was any chance of success and so I wasn’t wearing my jacket to as a means of protection for my body. So, I donned my jacket, grabbed a broom, pushed the cat into a position where I could grab her again and stuff her into the sack. It was a win, win, win, situation: I got rid of the cat, the cat found a home where she wasn’t despised, and the guard got a useful animal. The guard’s home is 5 kilometers from here and I hope that is enough distance from here that the cat won’t find her way back. I have emerged VICTORIOUS!!!! I white bagged the black cat!
However, it seems that when one bothersome situation is resolved another one decides to take its place. Among the various Christian entities here, one of them is the Pentecostal Church. And for some reason, they have taken it upon themselves to be one of the most annoying groups on the face of the planet. They insist on blasting their loud, horrendous, screeching voices across the villages with the loudest and poorest quality loudspeakers that they can find. And they always make sure that the people who do the screeching are the worst screechers they can find. Not only do they have the voices of dying donkeys when they sing but those people even attempt to make their voice sound even more broken and disturbing during the song – I guess to make sure that no one can sleep around them. On numerous occasions, they will continue their appalling evangelizing until past 3 am on weekdays! I realize that there are very few sources of steady employment here, but weekdays are weekdays for everybody. It’s as if they are trying to avoid salvation by annoying the gods so much that they will eventually be banished from paradise to a place where their awful rendition of music will be appreciated as a punishment for the rest. They will definitely be welcome in hell as colleagues and collaborators rather than victims.
And if the shrieking Pentecostalists aren’t enough, we have had this unrelenting rain that comes off and on in downpours. Right now, it certainly doesn’t rain but it pours. When it strikes the metal roofs of our dwellings, it feels like your head is inside a snare drum during a drum roll. I have been awaken so many times during these torrents, and I cannot go back to sleep until it eases. For those of you who know my slumbering proclivities, you can imagine how bad this noise really is.
And the rain doesn’t stop its irritation at the noise but it contributes to one of the worst smells of decay that I have ever experienced. The lake flies have decided to come out and die on our doorstep. And in their death, they have decided that the rain and their corpses shall merge to create the most offensive olfactory concoction possible. The horrendous smell is stifling in and of itself, but we have had to endure it for 5 days now. We have had too much rain and too little sun for the rotting bodies to dry out and allow us to breathe fresh air. Maybe, I should have left the cat alone.
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