The Story of the Kitties

As annoying as my rat problems are, the VSO house is even worse. It has concrete walls, a tin roof, and even a separate ceiling, so there should be no trouble. But a few months back, the giant tree beside the house was chopped down and the stump was partially burned. The rats that lived under the stump were now homeless. With nowhere to go, they started terrorizing the Irish VSO who lived there. Soon she had holes in the screen of her food safe and poo all over her dishes. The problem wasn’t really THAT bad, but Marian was somewhat melodramatic (I use the term “somewhat” loosely). It was the apocalypse as we knew it.

But it was about to get worse. Cyclone Yasi came through. Now if you’ve been a diligent blog reader, you know that this was the last weekend of January and stranded me in Vila for an extra 48 hours. When I finally arrived back in the Banks, I was excitedly shown the fresh hole in the windowsill where the rats had chewed through the wood to get into the kitchen. Apparently they were so freaked out by the storm and closed windows that they were willing to eat wood to get inside. “This is it,” Marian proclaimed, “The rats have declared war on the humans!!”

“Why don’t you get a cat?” I suggested.

“I HATE CATS!!!” A few weeks later her two years were up and she went back to her mother’s rat-free house in the Irish countryside before presumably finding a nice rat-free apartment in Dublin.

Her replacement was an English volunteer named Lucy, who – although less freaked out about the rat situation – was much more willing to look for a cat. Also by this time I was searching for one, as I had moved into my new house and didn’t need a cyclone to bring the rats inside; I have a thatched roof – they were already there.

We asked everyone for cats. You’d think it’d be easy to find cats in such a rural place, where people let animals roam free. Wrong. We have enough of a rat problem that cats are in incredibly high demand, plus Ni-Van culture isn’t too gentle concerning pets so they don’t exactly last long. Finally, the woman across the road from the VSO house announced that her cat was preggo. Fantastic! We both claimed one of the kittens.

When the kittens were born, there were three: one for me, one for Lucy, and one for my next door neighbors. Unfortunately, the mother wasn’t feeding them. Rose tried everything she could to feed them herself. We brought over a portion of Lucy’s horde of long-life milk she’d brought from Santo, we used little straws to try to force feed them, we tried using my bandanas, but within a month all three kittens were gone.

Back to square one. Kerry, proud owner of three cats (formerly four… moment of silence for Eugene, who was claimed by worms… okay done) came in April and on her way back to Mota Lava promised that if we didn’t find any cats by the middle of May, she might be willing to part with one.

Then, Lucy went to Santo for Easter. She came back on May 1 and said she had brought me a birthday present. I thought she was absolutely ridiculous, as she’d thrown me a party the night before my birthday (for which she baked me a cake and opened her only bottle of wine) but I followed her home out of curiosity anyway. She sat me down in her chair and apologized for not having had time to wrap the present, but told me to close my eyes and hold out my hands.

My present was fuzzy. And squirming. KITTY!!

She’d been walking down the road in Santo (yeah, we’re manbush, we call Luganville, ‘Santo,’ what of it?) and saw a cat with several kittens. She said something to the effect of, “Oh kittens! I want a cat!” She then noticed a woman who appeared to be the cats’ owner. “Take them!” (A very typically Ni-Van thing to say).

After realizing the woman was serious, she picked the two cutest ones and put them in her purse. She momentarily considered taking three, but the size of her purse limited her to two. She took them back to her motel, fed them, then went out and bought Bactroban for their fungal infections. She brought them back up the Banks in a cardboard box with holes poked in it. They made her put the box in cargo, (which I think is ridiculous; I’ve been on planes in this country with chickens and pigs, and cats are clearly more enjoyable creatures!! End rant) but they made it.

Next adventure: the naming process. By the time she got back, Lucy had already decided on a name for her kitten: Numbus (NOOM-boos), which means cat in Motlap language (of Mota Lava). So it only makes sense that mine will also be named cat, but which language? Cat in Bislama is puskat (POOS-kat), but that’s not quite name material. We started interviewing our neighbors.

The best bet would be the language of West Vanua Lava, as that language (along with Motlap) is the most widely spoken here at site. I headed for my host sisters, who said that Meow was how cats were generally called on the West side. I imagined myself wandering around my house and yard calling, “Meow! Meow!” at supper time. Sorry WVL, you’re out.

Next were Lucy’s next door neighbors. First, language Maewo: Bus, from puskat (B and P are pretty interchangeable here). Second, language Mota: Mimi. Very cute, but, lemme just check… yep, he’s a boy. Third, language ‘Parapara (of Ureparapara): Puss. Eehhhhh…

The storekeeper is from Ifira Island, which is pretty much in Vila harbor, and said that back home they usually just call the cats Pussy. Not happening.

Finally, Eba, one of our JICA volunteers, walked past. “Eba!! How do you say ‘cat’ in Japanese?” Neko! Perfect. Neko. Like the Necco Wafers.

Numbus and Neko.

My ten-year-old next door neighbor has already renamed them Bingo and Tiger, but whatever.

They’re still too little to separate, so Lucy kept them for the first weekend, then I’ve had them while she’s been on Mota Lava all week. My house now has the odd odor combination of tin tuna and cat pee, but there is no longer rat poo all over my kitchen every morning. And I have faith that eventually Neko will figure out that there’s a direct correlation between the number of times he pees on the absorbent concrete floor and the level of anger of his owner.