A Ten Dollar Cat

Let me say that an African's attitude toward animals is different from ours. They rarely, if ever, name an animal. They also rarely, if ever, feed them. Not that they don't eat, they do, a young boy will lead  the goats or cows out to a grassy area, or down to the river, but they do not bring food to the animals (or buy 50# bags of Purina from the pet food aisle).

Dogs and cats are on their own, they eat what they can find, which is why there's always a pack of salivating dogs circling the fire pit when I burn my garbage. An animal must have a purpose, to give milk, or meat, herd cows or catch mice. There are no pets here, and folks don't spend emotional energy on animals except to mourn the loss of milk or meat if it dies.

Where Socks lived for 2 days

That being said, when I arrived at school two days ago, one of the kids told me kuna paka chooni (there's a cat in the toilet). My first response was to tell the bozo to get him out, but then I realized he meant IN the toilet, as in DOWN the toilet. 


Toilets in most of Africa are pits (truly).  Our school choos are pretty nice, they have doors, and smooth cement floors. There's a hole in the cement, with footprint sized elevations on either side of the hole you can stand on as you squat. The pit is deep and wide, about 10-12 feet down, and the size of a small bathroom, but subterranean.




I could hear a cat, a scared sounding cat, but I couldn't actually see it, because it's dark in the pit and I don't like to spend too much time looking at three years worth of accumulated body waste.

Mosque near my hotel in Dar

Gods name is above, in red.

I figured that some kid had either chased it into the choo, or picked it up and dropped it in. Kids are kids, and sometimes they think dropping a cat down a latrine is fun. Besides, there's not many toys here. In America during the 1950's maybe I could have calIed the fire dept to come get Fluffy or Snowball out of the tree, but this isn't the 50's and we don't have a fire dept, and anyway, nobody cared but me.


I went next door to the pastor's house to ask if I could root through their woodpile for a big branch, thinking I could put it down the hole and the cat could climb up. It wasn't long enough, so I went back to the pastors to borrow some rope. I attached the limb to the rope and sent it down.

Two headed goddess

Wonderful three headed goddess.

So there I was, straddling the hole, waving a branch around the bottom of the choo, trying to lure the cat with a Kiswahili version of Here Kitty Kitty. It occurred to me at this time that of all the dumb stuff Africans have seen me do, this was by far the dumbest. Of course every kid in the neighborhood was watching, speculating, laughing...




Anyway, after about 15 minutes I figured I'd just tie the rope to the door handle and let the limb sway in the pit, maybe the cat would climb up on it's own. I went in to paint and wait for my adult students to arrive. As I was painting and trying to ignore the plaintive cries coming from the choo, I began to wonder why, in a continent with the highest infant mortality rates in the world, I was worried about a cat. I decided that while we all owe a death, even a cat, there's death with dignity and there's death by starvation at the bottom of a latrine while the entire student body pees on your head.




So, having exhausted myself and all my other ideas, I looked in desperation at my newly arrived adult students and told them that I'd give 10,000 tsh to the person who could get the cat out of the pit. Jeska smiled, jumped up, and ran out like she was being chased by a bull. She returned 3 minutes later with Samweli, who assured me he could get the cat.

Went to an Indian Temple in Dar, so lovely.

We needed a flashlight, which Teacher Martha had, but no batteries, so she went to the duka to get a couple and then we discovered that either the batteries didn't work, or her flashlight was broken. In the end, her torch was the problem, so we borrowed the storekeeper's. During all this time, the cat screamed and cried, which only made sense, given his situation.

Also at the temple. Don't know what it means, 

and was reluctant to interrupt praying

people to ask. 

At this point I was curious enough to grab the flashlight and actually look down the choo, something I hope never to repeat. It was really a kitten, a little black kitten with white feet (In America we'd probably call him Socks), sitting in what can only be described as fecal soup, screaming at me.

Local pay toilet/bathing house. The toiler is 200 tsh and to bathe is 300 tsh. 

About 15 and 18 cents, respectively.

These are all over the temple, it's an old Indian symbol

which got corrupted by Adolpf Hitler

Samweli cut down some thin branches, tied them end to end with bark to make a long pole, fashioned a noose out of that same bark, and sent it down the pit.  On the first try, he had him, but the knot slipped. On the second try he pulled him up and out, to the applause of the crowd. This is what happens when there's no library or television.






You should have seen this cat, Samweli had him roped around the neck, he was hissing and spitting, trying to claw whatever was handy. He was twisting and scratching so hard Samweli couldn't get near him to loosen the noose. I was afraid he'd be strangled before he'd be  rescued, so Martha stepped on the limb near his head which flattened him out long enough to free him, and he shot out of the schoolyard like his butt was  on fire. A happy ending. And I don't even like cats, I think they're snide.

I went back in to my adult students and noticed 'The Look,' a particular look Africans give wazungu when they think we're nuts but are too polite to say so. I asked, they reassured me that it was a mitzvah, I'm not a dope, but I could tell they were lying.

It's not always easy explaining wazungu behavior to Africans. But, tribes they understand, as all tribes have their own idiocyncracies, so paying a relative stranger what amounts to half a villagers monthly salary to rescue nobodies cat from a toilet is just one of my tribes peculiarities.

So far I haven't found out who put Socks in the choo, but I put a 500 tsh bounty on his head (about 50 cents). I may have to up it to 1,000 tsh, which is a lot of money for a kid here, so I anticipate some traitorous mtoto (kid) whispering a name in my ear any day now. Ann thinks it's possible there may be a rash of choo cats and noose wielding entrepreneurs in my future, which is possibly very true. I may have to put up some 'Out of Cat Rescuing Business' signs.

And sorry there's no pictures of old Socks emerging from his fecal prison. I didn't have my camera, although I wish I had, and I guess I'm just not ruthless enough to ask anyone, human or otherwise, to sit in a latrine for 20 minutes while I fetch my camera and take advantage of a great photo op.

Update. The little girl with the perforated bowel is doing well, and will probably go home this week. A lot of people worked very hard to keep her alive, it could have very easily gone the other way. Africa is a rough place, but good things happen. Just ask Socks. 


Asante Mungu.

Going to Dar this weekend, to take care of some business and eat as much Chinese food as I can in two days.

Nakupenda