The Story of a Cat

I think I've mentioned this before, but one of the hardest things about being here for me is the feral cats. They're everywhere, and it's not terribly uncommon that you stray across the body of one that was on the unlucky end of a collision with a car. I have somewhat of a bleeding heart when it comes to animals, I'll admit, and it's hard for me to see so many with no hope of a good life, especially as it will be many years before any sort of animal infrastructure is built up to instate a catch and release program to diminish the numbers.

So of course when a friend send me a picture of a tiny, really itty bitty kitten that followed him for a bit up the street I demanded to know where he had found it. And then I went out, scooped him off the streets, and brought him home.

And then I remembered that I am a college student in a foreign country living in an apartment and that I really, really don't have the time to raise a kitten. Oh, and there was also the fact that I'm leaving the country in another three months to return to the US, and there's no way I would be able to bring him with me (although, of course, I thought about trying).

The kitten- I named him Kareem (كريم), meaning generous- was seriously the tiniest thing I've ever seen. I estimated he was about 3 weeks old; when I first scooped him off the streets he couldn't really walk (it was more of a very, very drunken stumble) and his eyes were that hazy-not-quite-a-color that kittens have for the first several weeks. The first night I attempted to bottle feed him- not the easiest thing when your makeshift bottle is a ziploc baggie with a corner cut off, and ridiculously messy at that. Thankfully I quickly discovered that he could eat (kind of) by himself from a saucer, and from then on he got warmed up kitten formula with some mushy wet food in a saucer. This was also a really great way to make a complete and utter mess of things, as he decided that he needed to be as close as possible to the food, and would clamber INTO the saucer in order to eat. There were a lot of paper towel baths involved.

I also got to experience the truly thrilling job of being a momma cat in charge of making her kitten pee. Warm, wet paper towel to the butt after feeding- works every time. Who knew? I do, now. I certainly do not miss that part at all. I had him for two days before finding a vet to take him to (of course located in Abdoun, the richest neighborhood in Amman), and spent those two days waffling over what I should do with him. I didn't really want to keep him- it just wasn't logical on my part, and he was so time intensive that I wouldn't have time for anything else- but at the same time, pets aren't really a huge scene here, especially cats. I kind of just decided that whatever happened happened and decided to leave it at that.

That Saturday I took him to the vet, randomly located above a small grocery store in a very, very residential neighborhood. The vet took him into the exam room, prodded him for a couple minutes, and pronounced him healthy except for a flea problem. I left him there for an hour, hour and a half for the flea bath and waited outside for him. It was a relatively pleasant evening in a nice, quiet neighborhood, so I just tucked myself in a nook on the sidewalk outside someones house and read a book on my phone. Apparently in Abdoun they are not used to young white foreign women perching on sidewalks for prolonged periods of time, because a man came up to me after lingering in his garden for a while and struck up a conversation with me. His English was limited- although better than my Arabic- and our conversation was mostly based on Obama (he was of the opinion that Obama should have married a white woman, but liked him anyways). He ended up inviting me inside for some tea, reflective of the hospitable culture here, but I assured him that I was fine where I was. He was nice, it was a well to do neighborhood, but I was alone and it's better to err on the side of caution. He wandered away after that, and I went back to my reading.

...until 10 minutes later, when he walked up again, this time with an older gentleman in tow. This older gentleman struck up a conversation with me-- his English was flawless, and he told me that he had lived in the US for 10 years during the 60s and then taught Arabic to expats in Oman. He explained to me that he was the previous fellow's neighbor, and had been fetched because of his superior English skills. He repeated the invitation to tea, which I once again declined, explaining that my cat was at the vet and I was just waiting for him. We said our farewells, he went off and talked animatedly with the first man, and then they went back inside.

At that point the one and a half hours were up, so I went back inside to fetch Kareem. He was all fluffy and clean from his back, but mad as a devil and made sure we all knew it. The vet visit itself was wayyy cheaper than it would have been back in the states- just 20 JD- so that was nice, seeing as I am a starving college student and don't exactly have a lot of spare cash to throw at large vet bills. Been there, done that, ready to not do that again for a while now. I collected little Kareem and shuffled him back home, now flea free and much cleaner.

Upon arriving home one of my roommates made her distaste for him very clear- a bit confusing as she had been there when I first found him and had seemed supportive. Regardless, that kind of put a wrench in things, and I decided to pull out all of the stops to find him a home. There was a lot of web crawling as I tried to figure out if there were any animal rescues/shelters in Amman, and what the animal scene was like. Things I learned: there's one large animal shelter that may or may not still be operational (their phone number doesn't work and their website hasn't been updated in a while), there's a vet clinic that sometimes takes in rescues and rehomes them, and that there's a small but surprisingly present animal community.

I posted an adoption listing on the aforementioned vet clinic's facebook page, and then went through the really fun process of screening interested people. It was hard because I needed to significantly lower my standards from what I am used to in animal adoptions, simply because of the animal community here, but I also wanted to make sure he went to a good home and wouldn't end up back out on the street. It took a couple people- my favorite was a 16 year old boy who was significantly more interested in finding out how old I was than in Kareem, and who wanted me to keep him for another month to potty train him before selling him for 100 JD to him- but I ended up finding someone to take him, and it only took me five days!

So I had Kareem for about a week- a terrible, terrible week filled with waking up at 6am to feed the crying kitten and running home after every class to feed him again and not being able to go out because I needed to feed the kitten and.. you get the point. The little bugger got on my nerves a lot, but there were also some high points (like the first day he figured out the litter box; I went around telling everyone who would listen how smart he was for pooping in the right place).

I met with the final approved adopter that Thursday, handed Kareem off, and breathed a huge sigh of relief. And now I can officially say I have adopted out a kitten in Jordan.. I think that's one to add to my resume!