BY TAPIWA GOMO Sometime back, I stayed in one of the troubled East African countries along the coastline of the Indian Ocean. The country has endured nearly three decades of war and is now attempting to rise with the re-establishment of State institutions and proper governance systems. It is not an easy task but it is happening. The climate in that country is very warm, oppressive, windy, and mostly cloudy. Over the course of the year, the temperature typically varies from 25 degrees to 35 degrees and is never below 25 degrees. However, the evenings tend to be cooler and windy; and at our lodgings there was a nice rooftop that overlooked the Indian ocean just after the airport runway. It is there that most people gathered during weekend evenings for a drink and dinner. One of the mid-weekdays, I decided to go for a solo dinner at the rooftop and to enjoy the Indian Ocean breeze and to steam-off and unwind after a long and hectic day in office. I tucked myself near a corner facing the ocean side. Just moments as I started to enjoy my dinner, a clowder of cats appeared and positioned themselves around my dinner table. They looked hungry and they wanted food. I had the food but I also wanted it. It was my food. I do not have a good history with cats. My young age was full of “cat-fights” as I enjoyed stepping on their tails. Some cats were unforgiving, cantankerous and they would retaliate. And here on this day in this compound, the number of cats had grown exponentially and yet they was no one tasked to feed them. They scrambled for food every meal time. On this day, my young-age discomfort with cats was evoked compounded by the awareness that a hungry cat can do anything for food and here I was surrounded by a clowder of them. So, they started with their usual strategy. One mews to draw my sympathy while another crawled from under the bench, as the rest criss-crossed around — perhaps to unsettle me so I could abandon my dinner. I remained still and steady. They made their advances using different tactics. I held my ground but I had stopped eating which I thought pleased them. My attempts to scare them away did not yield results. The cats were unwavering. Maybe this was their only chance for dinner and I was cornered. My dinner was saved by a colleague, who I thought also intended to have a solo dinner at the rooftop. I told him of my battle to scare away the cats, how they were reluctant to leave me alone and disrupted my dinner. He laughed and then he went downstairs to the kitchen to collect waste food in a huge bowl which he brought upstairs and placed at the far corner of the rooftop. With speed all the cats trooped away and followed him and feasted from that bowl. I did not see them again that evening. We resumed our dinner as he tried to tell me that hungry cats are unrelenting and if push comes to shove, they can attack just for food. He further told me that the best way to handle that situation was to find them food and place it far. That way, the cats will never disrupt your meal. They are proud creatures. As
