Sunday, June 30, 2013

Nobody told us about the cats!



Speaking of cats…Zanzibar is teeming with them, in varying sizes and levels of fierceness; most of the ones we’ve seen hang out at Forodhani. (Except at night, of course, when they hold “Cat Fight Club” outside our windows.) I can’t say I blame them. Lie around in the sun all day; eat scraps from the daily food fest/barbecue all evening; then work out (a.k.a. fight) – seems like a pretty good life!

Seriously, though…is the cat Zanzibar’s official animal?? They are more annoying than the spiders, ants…even the flies, and if you know me/my aversion to bugs, that’s saying a lot!

But first, let me digress for a minute and talk about the bugs. There are many. Spiders, ants (none that seem to bite…yet), cockroaches (ugh…but not surprising given how close together apartments in Stone Town are). We won’t talk about the bugs from last weekend when we went up north to a small, quieter beach town called Kendwa. One of the first things I made sure we bought as soon as we arrived was bug spray for our apartment. Turns out, we didn’t need it. Our sweet, tiny little Stephanie is a fierce bug killer. Maggie and I usually scream, and sometimes run – AWAY from the bug(s), of course…while Steph mercilessly squishes them with a shoe, napkin, or whatever’s close at hand. Maggie and I have learned to cover our ears if we don’t want to hear the “crunch” or “squish” as the creepy crawlie loses its guts. Stephanie says we should thank her brothers for this side of her, so THANK YOU Michael and David!!! The other day, we were sitting at a table at an outdoor café, about to order food, and Maggie smacked her hand on the table, smashing an ant, barely looking up from her menu. Naturally we were (okay…I was) in awe of her; she shrugs and says, “Just wait till you’ve been here 6 weeks…you’ll do that too.” Poor, harmless ant…I’m still at the point of trying to blow them away from me…but they’re island ants, i.e. persistent and aggressive. It doesn’t work.

Back to the cats. They are our constant, if uninvited, dinner companions when we eat at Forodhani; they stroll around like they own the place, yawning and stretching lazily at the start of the dinner rush, ready for the evening entertainment. They sit at our feet in packs of at least 3-4, watching intently as people eat, licking their lips and inching closer with every bite. Forget having any semblance of human-cat personal space on the days you happen to get fish…you’ll be lucky to finish half of your dinner before you’re silently goaded into tossing what’s left into the trash where they half-heartedly fight for the scraps, move on to the next victim of their stare-downs. And you should see the battle scars on some of these cats – it’s no wonder people give in to them! We can usually tell from a distance when an especially bad-a** cat is en route, even before we can see the scars or scabbed-over wounds; the other kitties yowl and jump out of the way, as he/she walks majestically to his/her next target. **Shudder**

The other day, Maggie’s dinner (at Forodhani) was cut short by a particularly aggressive cat that did not so much as bat an eyelid when shooed away, or react at a half-hearted attempt from a skewer-wielding me to scare it into submission...or at least keep it at bay long enough for us to finish eating. (Relax, my animal-loving friends; the skewer in question is pretty much a long flimsy toothpick, and it’s all I/we had at our disposal at the time.) He decided enough was enough, hopped onto the bench we were sitting on, and proceeded to chow down on Maggie’s food (chili & all) as she dropped her plate onto the bench and jumped away. I don’t blame her…that kitty looked MEAN!! I’m pretty sure he had won the previous night’s bout. Even the other cats give him a wide berth. Needless to say, we provided some fun entertainment for our local friends that evening. Later that evening, the same cat scared Maggie into dropping her mango. Not a good night for dinner at Foro, I guess. Spice Girls: 0; Scary Kitty: 1. Oh, who am I kidding!?! Scary Kitty wins every time!

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