Eid al-Adha

According to Wikipedia, Eid al-Adha is a 4 day festival in which Muslims honor the willingness of Abraham to sacrifice his son.  Individual families,including urban families, do this by killing an animal and dividing the meat into three parts: one third goes to the family, one third is given to relatives, friends and neighbours; and the remaining third is given to the needy (apparently some people need hunks of sheep).

There are A LOT of families in Egypt.  As a result, the number of animals in the city increased dramatically over the last weeks leading up to the Eid holiday.  Parking lots, the basements of buildings under construction and the occasional sidewalk were all used as temporary corrals for sheep, goats, and the odd head of cattle.  A friend even spotted a delicious looking camel one neighbourhood over. The build up continued until the livestock-to-street-cat ratio was surprisingly even by Tuesday.  Trust me-Christmas tree sales are small potatoes compared to this and there are no artificial animals to be purchased at Home Depot.

A building under construction in my neighbourhood.
My balcony is too small to house the goat on the far right BTW
-I did consider it.

Friends and I were caught trying to snap a secret phone camera photo one night of a sheep stall in our upper class neighbourhood.  We must have looked like we were inspecting the sheep and discussing finances to the urban shepherd boys who asked us if we needed assistance.  I am sure they could not speak enough English to be reassured by the fact that we claimed to be still in the browsing phase. 

The stories about how Thursday's mass slaughter would fill the streets with rivers of blood made the holiday seem like an excellent opportunity to get out of town.  The same group of friends and I decided to go to Cairo for a few days as an alternative to purchasing a dirty and irritated looking farm animal. 

The one obvious flaw in the plan was that the holiday takes place in Cairo too.  Although we spent most of the main feast day in a blood and guts free hotel, we did in fact end up wandering through a local market in the Islamic part of the city.  It was basically closed for business and most of the butchering had been completed by the time we arrived in late afternoon.  The streets were dotted with pools of blood, but it certainly the scene fell short of the description. Several cow heads, a few hunks of fly covered bits, young boys in blood stained t-shitrts, older boys riding mopeds dragging sheep skins behind were the only celebration to be seen.  I have heard reports that the sidewalks in our neighbourhood had seep brain piles every 50 feet or so.  This apparently made the walk to the supermarket more exciting than usual. Even if this is also an exaggeration, I suspect that we got off easy. 

Always a bride's maid....still unclaimed on Friday afternoon.

CATastrophy

So I am cat sitting a co-worker’s aging childhood pet for a few days while she is out of town.  Cleopatra and I were not exactly bonding as she was shy, sleepy and a little off her food.  The second important detail is that the apartment door doesn’t seem to close securely- the wood securing the original deadbolt has been removed giving the sense that the door is never completely shut. 

I was on the fly yesterday afternoon when I opened the door to find a white cat in the hallway.  At first I was a little shocked and then annoyed.  I scooped the indignant and equally surprised animal up and threw it in to the apartment and locked the door.  Although it did cross my mind that this might in fact be “Not Cleopatra”, I dismissed the idea quickly.  I mean there are a LOT of street cats in Alexandria, but what were the chances really.

When I returned to the apartment several hours later I was greeted by an usually alert and affectionate cat clearly obsessed with something under the dining room hutch. Eventually, I got down on my stomach and peered under the hutch; a position that put me eye-to-eye with a second, almost identical, white cat. 

It seemed that I had a case of mistaken cat identity on my hands.  To put it another way- abruptly, without my knowing it, my life had become the plot of a P.G. Woodhouse novel.  I spent the next 40 minutes pretending to watch TV while trying to work out which of the two was the real Cleopatra and which was the imposter: a difficult task given the fact that I had very little contact with the real deal and the cat that I suspected was the genuine article was acting unusually lucid and friendly.

I finally used a lifeline and called a friend.  I had her cross reference my description and a few blurry shots of the likely Cleo with photos from the owner’s Facebook page (see photo).  The loser of this contest got kicked back out into the hall.

Now I am 100%....well, 90% sure that the very hungry and affectionate (not to mention lucid) cat that remains in the apartment is the correct animal.  My only nagging concern is that the two had adult cat relations when they were alone together for the afternoon.  Can an elderly house cat get pregnant? A completely ridiculous thought, but not beyond the realm of possibility in the context of a drama about mistaken cat identity. 

I am not sure how I would explain an unexpected pregnancy to the owner, but I can’t worry about that at the moment.  For now I am trying to remain focused on what to say to this woman if I made the wrong choice in the 50/50 cat selection process.

Fingers crossed. 

creature feature

I think this is a ferret

So I have been researching the difference between pole cats and ferrets in an attempt to identify the the long black creatures that slink around the perimeter of the school yard and under cars parked on the streets.  I have a Canadian coworker who has spotted one on her balcony on multiple occasions. She has not been taken by the same zoological curiosity immediately deciding that regardless of the species or genus of the thing, it is definitely from a family of animals that would be difficult to evict once inside your apartment. She sleeps in the heat with her shutters firmly closed.

This guy is eating breakfast on the corner
every morning when I am heading to work.

Apart from these creepy little suckers there is very little variety to the wild life here.  Feral cats, wild dogs, feral cats, pigeons, feral cats and a bird that Wikipedia informs me is a kingfisher- although much more shy and ugly than its Indian cousin. I have tried unsuccessfully to take its picture on my walk to work in the morning.  It seems that it really is true that nobody in this country wants their picture taken.

The most interesting selection of animals to be found is actually in the market. These critters are not wild.  In fact, it is unclear why they never think to make a break for it. The animals purchased by foreigners as pets last year, on the other hand, all inexplicably disappeared during weekends and holidays.  The local hire staff responsible for caring for them also claimed to be bewildered by the mystery. The sensory garden is pet free this year.

Perhaps avoiding eye contact is an actual strategy.

There are also chicken, ducks and turkeys.