I would like to follow up Merritt’s last entry to discuss one aspect of the whole Kali saga that she didn’t address. Though Kali was, by all appearances, “abandoned” when we found her, after spending the better part of a day and night balling in one of the empty dorm rooms on the COTC campus, two days after we adopted her, two cats who were unmistakably Kali’s parents showed back up, and upon hearing Kali cry in our room, while Merritt and I were at work, preceded to hang around everyday for hours on end, waiting for their kitten to be returned to them, yet still too afraid of humans to come into our room when the door was open and Kali was playing on the floor.
Of course, their return created a terrible quandary for Merritt and I, as we felt awful at the thought of stealing these cats’ baby, yet we couldn’t bring ourselves to return the kitten we ourselves had already fallen in love with. The sight of the parents hanging around elicited real guilt in me, and I badly wanted the parents to finally forget about ever recovering their baby.
When my guilt was ultimately relieved it was not by the parents finally forsaking their kitten, but rather by something that “Rabord” told us (pronounced like Robert, when spoken quickly), who is the accountant at COTC and was our neighbor during the time we were living at the school’s hostel. Rabord confirmed that Tanzanians generally don’t care for both cats and dogs as pets, and that cats were especially disliked by the students at COTC – to the point where the poor animals are sometimes poisoned. Knowing that I had rescued Kali from such an unfortunate fate allowed me to come to terms with our decision not to return her to her parents. Whatever nursing and care they might have been able to give her as a kitten, I cringe at the thought of the life she would have had there at COTC.
Recently Rabord told Merritt another interesting story that further confirms our decision to keep Kali. Apparently there is a witch doctor here in Mtwara who goes by the name of Dr. Nyeau Nyeau (the Tanzanian equivalent of Dr. Meow Meow; yes, animals apparently sound different in Kiswahili). He has been given his name because in addition to being partial to the taste of cat, he also often uses the animals, particularly kittens in his practice. He believes cats have special powers and so he’ll often require a patient to bring along a kitten when they come for their “healing,” whereupon he’ll sacrifice the kitten and use the blood for his patent medicines.
Ignoring for a second the grotesqueness of this story, it brings to mind the time my sister’s husband wore a shirt to one of our family reunions emblazoned with the simple statement, “Cat - The Other White Meat.” This was before he and my sister were married, and his choice of wardrobe prompted laughs from some and looks of utter disdain from others. As I recall the story, my little old grandmother, since passed on, was particularly upset about the shirt.
Who knows, maybe Dr. Nyeau Nyeau is just being practical in a country where pork is called “kiti moto,” since as the name literally suggests, it will put a Muslim on the “hot seat.”
Dr. Nyeau Nyeau also reminds me of a story we heard during Peace Corps training from one of our cross-cultural facilitators, whose brother is a real, legitimate doctor in the town of Tanga. The doctor confided to his brother that a woman had recently come into his office claiming to be pregnant and in the midst of child birth. Upon examining the woman, to the doctor’s great surprise, she promptly “gave birth” to two, still fresh chicken eggs. To confirm what the eggs manifestly appeared to be, the doctor cracked one open, to find a normal yoke and white, like any egg you would buy at the market.
One of the strangest aspects to the story, at least for me, was how many Tanzanians fully believed that the woman had really given birth to chicken eggs – rather than simply concluding, as Merritt and I have, that this crazy lady clearly put the two eggs up there, before waddling to the doctor’s office. The Tanzanians, including one of our language teachers, wholeheartedly believed in the witchcraft presumed in the story, and proudly told it to anyone who would listen.
My surprise at hearing them latch on to the sensationalism of the story was somewhat explained when, during a long bus ride back from Songea, I watched part of a Tanzanian movie featuring a scene in a doctor’s office, wherein the doctor explained, after examining the young girl (who later turned out to be bewitched), that she was “in perfectly normal health,” as far as the doctor could tell, who even checked to see if “air had gotten into her mother’s womb during pregnancy,” thus mentally handicapping the child. Apparently, Tanzanians have a fairly distorted perception of the “practice” of medicine.
Well, out of this crazy world, we have rescued Kali, who has enough of her own oddities to confirm her Tanzanian heritage. After two weeks, we’ve sufficiently spoiled her to the point where she’ll only eat fresh tuna (“jodari” in Kiwswahili), which thankfully is often available from our favorite fish monger, Azizi, at the small Magomeni market. After a dose of tuna, Kali turns into her namesake – fierce and unabiding, attacking any luggage or bag strap, foot or hand, electrical cord, that comes within her grasp. It’s like feeding her straight catnip – she loses her head. Any other food, even other types of fresh fish, she turns up her nose at and has to have gone hungry all day to be compelled to eat. We’ve definitely spoiled her, and my hopes of her one day being a prize cockroach killer are quickly evaporating.
Still, she’s a real joy to have – despite the lost sleep Merritt and I have had to endure and the worry she’s given us the few times she’s gotten sick or stopped eating. As Merritt said, all the Tanzanians think its a real hoot that we have adopted a kitten as a pet, but I wouldn’t have it any other way, regardless of how strange they may think us. Who knows what kind of difference we’ll make in the lives of any Tanzanians, but at least for one little, rambunctious kitten, we’re not just saviors, we’re now her parents.
