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Belizean Bachelor Life
While Margaret (www.localgringos.com)
was getting ready to leave for the States, somebody dumped three little bitty
kitties on her lawn. An owl or hawk
carried one away, and she was left with a couple of adorable little fur-balls.
She called me up and begged for assistance, bribing me with cooking
goodies that she has accumulated like three kinds of vinegar, and lemon-grass
soup and canned clams. I took the
kitties…and the bribe!
I asked them what their names were.
“Fritz and Sue,” they told me. Sue
(a boy kitty) climbed up on the bed and explained that it wasn’t “Sue” it
was “Sioux.” “Kitty Sioux” – like ‘Peggy Sue’ -- has a ring to it.
At any rate, I already had a cat box, and they were trained, and they
brought a mammoth appetite, so all I had to do was add a couple of food bowls
and keep them fed.
They started sleeping with me right
away – along with Ernie – but they all have a tendency to wake up at 4AM and
start playing/fighting/love-playing. What
ever it is, I can’t sleep thru it. I
get up, and let Ernie out about five – he likes to ‘do his business”
outside, and then the littie kitties fight a little and curl up and sleep.
Lately, they’ve been sleeping in
the windows – I will include pictures of that on the website. Ernie fills up
the entire window, and threatens to outgrow it – he is growing like a weed,
threatening to become the Lion King of this end of Corozal, or at least 8th
Avenue.
Today (Sunday) I was cooking up some
Rice and Beans, and I had the beans done by 1PM and that sounded like a good
meal. I went over to the tortilla
factory (two blocks away) and got a shilling’s worth
(12 cents) of Corn Tortillas, served up some beans, mayo (to put on the
tortillas) and the –still hot – tortillas, an Icy Belikin Beer – and
retired to the back yard, with the kitties.
It was their first trip out of the
house. Ernie went with them to
safeguard them from Brutus! Brutus
hung around long enough to steal a couple of tortillas from the stack and then
he went up front.
These kitties have been practicing
climbing on everything in the house. They
are particularly fond of the PA speakers, which are about two feet high and
covered with “mouse fur” – black, climbable stuff which they assault, and
then settle down on top – “King of the World, Ma!!” and look at me, saying
“Ok, Boss, what’s next?”
Well today, they found out what is
next. My Avocado tree!! Both of them went up it like they’d been “born to
climb” – which, of course, they have!!
There is a long slanting branch, and they would go up that – sometimes
one at a time – and then drop down on the other, or on Ernie.
Ernie seemed very paternal/maternal.
He lay around watching them, occasionally participating but just mostly
overseeing like some sort of a Big Brother.
It was instructional to me, because
I was seeing my Back Yard thru fresh eyes.
That’s what I hope the Belizeans will understand about the Gringos. You can live somewhere for years, and think you know
everything about a place, and then some stranger, or youngster, or “newbie”
as they like to say (disparagingly) comes
along and shows you things about your environment that you never thought of
before.
It’s one of the strengths of the
US – all these strangers – Irish, African, Scandinavian, Slovakian, Asian,
Latino --
came in and showed us what a wonderful place we had – just about the
time we were giving up.
I have fond hopes that the Belizeans
will accept the Gringos in that spirit. But
I have my doubts..
Senor Reek.
+ Wondering if a community of Catz
is sufficient.
+ Wondering if he’ll just always
be another Steenking Gringo in Belize
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