Lushoto District

Oh this cat! Around a month ago she was brought here from the other manager's home in order to catch some mice around the administration building, although being advanced in pregnancy. But directly in the beginning she disappeared and gave birth to her cubs in some hidden place. Not surprising considering the two to seven dogs strolling permanently around our premises.
A few days after she reappeared but nobody was able to tell where the kittens were hiding. For many days we even didn't know if she still was feeding them because in our understanding she spent way too much time around the main cottage begging for food and just sleeping on a pillow. And she seemed to keep her milk. Later she got quite annoying and scavenged for days and days around the main cottage, peeked in every corner, under every part of the straw roof, meowing desperately as if in search for her babies. She also got more attached to us, demanding love and cuddles.
We suspected that she stopped producing milk as her teats appeared to be empty. She had a favourite place under the roof where she constantly went during her searches and where I managed to crawl once but I did not find any traces of offsprings. Finally, we decided that her little ones must have been looted or that she rejected them.
She calmed down and somehow decided to hang out most of her time with me now. Wherever I walk around the lodge, she follows me like a dog and keeps dancing between my legs so that I have to take care not to step on her or to kick her around occasionally. She likes to fall back and then, full of energy, she speeds like a cheetah, rushes up a tree next to me just to jump down again and meow at me.
For a few days now she follows me into my cottage in the evenings and, after cleaning her coat and also licking my fur, she curls up into a warm ball of cosiness on my pillow, just between my shoulder and my ear, having no problem to stay there for 12 hours.
Once she brought me a tick as a present and I burned it satisfyingly until it released a delightful "pff". We like each other. Apart from souvenirs from the bush she is very clean and good-smelling! She chases off any single dog or other cat and tries to disturb my telephone conferences in every manner by purring into the mic. During her most affectionate greetings she looks straight into my eyes, puts her ears to the side, her paws around my neck and attacks me by chewing and ripping on my beard and gently biting into my chin. Or is she actually trying to kill me? What a wonderful, delicate, mysterious, tiny, little creature! But, our claw-free adventure might soon be interrupted by some interesting news from the embassy ...

Meanwhile I read some pages in "Born Free" by Joy Adamson where she describes episodes of a lioness being released into Kenya's wilderness and producing cubs there. In Joy's detailed narrations the lioness behaves quite similarly to my cat at hand - also seeming not to produce any milk during the early weeks while spending a lot of time in camp - and I have the feeling that our kitty still might be hiding her little monsters somewhere and that she's just a professional in deceiving all of us.Read more