The hardships of having a pet in Moz.

I decided when I got to Moz that I wanted to get a cat. I love the company. I love having something to come home to. I love sharing my home and my bed with a little fluffy cuddling kitten. My roommate when I first got to Moz was allergic and so I suffered through a whole year in a cat-less house. Last December I received a new roommate who wanted to get a cat as well! Yay! We chose an adorable white and orange male cat (we don’t want no kittens!!). 

From the beginning he was sweet, but very loud! I have never had such an obnoxiously loud cat! He slept with me every night. And I don’t mean cuddled by my feet or on the blanket. I mean he slept on my face. Like really, right there on top. Sometimes I felt like I was wearing a kitten scarf! He loved to be as close as physically possible. Well a few weeks ago (when he was barely 6-7 months old) he started to get sick. He had diarrhea multiple times every day and couldn’t control it. Then he kept getting sicker and stopped eating. He wouldn’t even eat his favorite food- chicken!! After a week of trying everything we could think of we took him to the local ‘veterinarian.’ The guy injected the cat with some medicine that we later learned is made for cows and goats. That day the cat got sicker and sicker until he couldn’t even move. He died that night. Now, I don’t know how well you people reading this know me, but this was an overly traumatic experience for me. I tend to care more about animals than people! I was more attached to this cat than anyone in Mozambique. Plus watching the cat die in front of me brought up a lot of crap from watching my father do the exact same thing. Anyway, this whole experience made me feel so helpless. Here in Mozambique animals are only around to make life easier. For example- dogs protect houses, cats eat rats, and chickens, ducks, goats, and cows are food for us. They don’t have pets. They thought that the “americanas” were crazy for the way we treated our cat. “What you sleep with your cat!” The idea is too crazy for them to believe. Because of this it is almost impossible to help a sick animal. However this logic makes perfect sense. Mozambique needs to work on caring for its people before worrying about its animals. Even knowing this it was miserable to watch the cat suffer and not be able to do anything!!! And the so-called veterinarian ended up killing the cat and not healing it! (Granted it may have died anyway and the medicine just speeded up the process.)

Here is an excerpt from that day:

Last night my cat died. My baby little precious cute annoying cuddly gatinho. I was sooooo attached to this cat. He slept on my face (like really!!!) every night and I had finally adapted to my allergy of him. He cuddled like no cat I have ever had. He was my baby. His name was tmanga (peanut in the local language) and he was orange and white with green eyes.

He was adorable. He followed me around and he was scared of everything. He would jump from the toilet to my shoulders to get attention in the morning. He would meow outside my door if I locked him out. He would catch lizards and play with them. He only ate sardines and was soooo spoiled. He was the first thing I looked for when I came home and the last thing I said goodbye to when I left. Sometimes I would go into his room just to kiss him on the top of his head while he was sleeping. He loved it. He was so sweet. Don’t get me wrong people I love Zadie all there is but I had a special alone in Africa bond with tanga. Also all you people out there saying, “damn cat woman!” you can shut your judgmental mouths. I happen to love animals more than people. Like I would grab my cat out of a burning building first!