A Cat Lady Christmas Miracle

(This should have been posted before I left for the holidays, but wasn't. oops)

I spent just over 2 months in Sudan - post Benin holiday and pre home for Christmas - with just a 3 night transit through South Sudan to regroup and repack before flying back to Canada.

When I got back to the office in Juba (South Sudan), obviously my first priority was to find Boris and Scabbers and the other kitties and give them some lovin’.

And I was confronted by two upsetting truths:

1. When I left, Boris was a kitten. Now, she’s a proper cat. They grow up so fast. (sniff)
2. Boris was now our only office pet.

I inquired immediately as to the whereabouts of the rest of the family, and was told that they had been relocated the week before I came back. At the directive of our Boss. They were packed up and driven to the other side of Juba and dropped off in the big market.

Boris was allowed to stay, I suspect, because The Boss knew that there would be an International Staff Uprising had she disappeared.

The others were much nosier and more annoying, and since Preggers kept multiplying, it was decided that she had to go, as did Not Boris (who, by not being Boris, never really stood a chance anyways).

“But even Scabbers?!” I enquired, horrified. “But she is so friendly and people are not very nice to stray animals generally. With her skin condition and squeaky voice, she doesn’t stand a chance!”

(Also, turns out she doesn’t have a skin infection. She has cancer. Or so says a vet that we sent photos to. Which means we should be extra nice to her. We still call her a Pretty Kitty. Because it’s better for her self esteem. And cause she’ pretty on the inside, where it counts.)

At the end of the road

There is a place that I visited recently that is like no other I’ve ever experienced before.  It feels as if it has developed as a stand-alone world, and it protects itself from change because it holds tightly to the belief that this is the best way and simply must be.

It is literally at the end of the road, with the end of the tarmac signalling that it’s time to turn and suggesting that this just might be the end. Of everything. There just might not be anything past this.

Before you get to the end of this road however, you must be duly prepared. For me, this meant that I had to get wrapped up into the customary covering that women there wear, with nothing but my face showing (and most women even cover most of that). I didn’t want to have to sit in the car wearing it for hours, so our convoy had to stop before the end of the road and with the assistance of some lovely female colleagues I was made ‘decent’. A number of them pulled out their phones and started taking pictures of me, which at first I played along with, but then the ragged edges of self-consciousness started to creep in. “Now you are beautiful” they said. Gee thanks. What was I before?

We piled back into the land cruisers, which had just recently been filled with singing and clapping. This all had to stop once we crossed the threshold. Radio silence was required. No singing would be allowed, no clapping should be heard. “Why” I asked? “No, no, you just can’t do that here”.

We arrived after dark and I was ushered off to a compound where I would spend the night, separate from the rest of the team for security purposes but mostly I suspect, for my personal comfort. There was no power on when we arrived so it appeared to me to be as normal a village as I’d ever been to, but I knew what I would experience the next day.

In the morning, wrapped up once again, I met the teams to review the plan for the day. We were visited by a community leader before we could proceed, who told us The Rules. The only ones that were translated for me? No earphones. Absolutely no cameras. Roger, copy that.

The culture in this area is similar to the village I wrote about earlier (where I got the death threat) but even more conservative. The women were dressed from head to toe in beautiful bright colours, with nose rings and bangles, as in the other village, and the men and boys were all wearing long white robes, some with dark cropped vests on top. But wait, something seems a little off. I can’t quite put my finger on it…