We knew what we were getting into when we signed up for this. When Wanda and I were talking about accepting the Country Rep position for MCC Ethiopia back in St. Catharines, ON we knew that we had to tell the girls. And so it happened one night at the supper table. We slowly explained that we were in conversation with MCC and if we said yes that would mean moving out of our house, leaving St. Catharines and going to Africa. There was a short silence as the three little minds mulled this over. What could they be thinking? Were they going to ask about what it was like in Ethiopia? Were they worried about security? Food? Clothing? Language? Being far away from family?
“If we go to Ethiopia will we be able to have pets?” This was the first question out of their mouths. Of course it seems logical now because they had been pestering us for more pets beyond our beloved Sal the cat. We had said no because of our limited yard space and I was averse to dogs in the house. The question revealed the big differences in how we adults viewed the pet issue in contrast to our daughters. Knowing a bit about the compound we would be living in we felt it was safe to say yes. Yes you can have a dog. Yes, you can have a cat. Yes, everyone will have a pet to call their own.
And thus it has been so. But kittens and puppies? Alas, I knew we could probably not get away from this development even back then. So here we are 2 years later with a cat with two kittens and a dog soon to have puppies. The girls are excited. What I have been dreading is what they have been waiting for.
But the two kittens are cute, I must admit. One looks like her mother, Princess Waffles and the other looks like his father (or so we believe), Spot. At three weeks old their eyes are open and they are wobbling around like toddlers. We feared that PW would be a horrible mother. The first litter ended in disaster as she rejected the newborns. But she nursed the kittens from the start and they are growing normally.
Soon after PW gave birth we found a wicker basket and put nice soft towels in it for the kittens. The basket went under Abby’s bed in the girls’ bedroom. It seemed like a good arrangement. For about a week Princess Waffles put up with the foot traffic (human and animal), but one day the little family disappeared. What could have happened? Did the father, Spot, find them and take them away and kill them? Did Peanut the dog? Did Princess Waffles move them and if so, where? So that morning we hunted all over the compound for them. The girls were in school so everyone from the guard to the household staff went looking but to no avail. Then, just as we thought we would be breaking the bad news in the afternoon to the girls, a break in the story. Yeshi, our housekeeper, had been washing clothes that day and had taken all the clothes out of our laundry basket in our bedroom. The basket is a huge woven barrel about 1 meter high. In the afternoon Yeshi went to put the lid on the basket and she was startled as she noticed movement deep in the basket. There was Princess Waffles and the 2 kittens! Somehow she had climbed the basket with a kitten in her mouth and deposited it deep down in the basket.
And so that has become the home of PW and her kittens. She has felt the safety of the high walls of the basket and the relative quiet of our room (compared to our girls’ room, go figure). We did try one time to move the kittens back to the wicker basket but PW promptly moved them back again. In the past several days we have tipped the basket on its side to allow for the kittens to walk out (and for our daughters to play with them on the floor). PW has accepted that.
And they are cute. Very cute. There will come a time in the near future (probably by May) when we will give the kittens away to good homes and everyone will be sad. But in the meantime there will be fun days ahead for our girls (and yes, for Wanda and I as well).
