When Paul and I arrived at Matoso, one of the first things our cook asked Marty was whether we were "cat people" or not. There have been volunteers who kept strays in the cook house which drove Joyce crazy. Now there are stray cats that loiter outside our cook house and huts, meowing at all hours of the day and night and generally making a nuisance of themselves. Not only are they pests but they could also carry rabies ( I tell you this so you don't hate us for what I'm about to divulge).
Before we got here, Jeevan tried to rid the compound of some of the cats. He would leave food out every day, moving it closer and closer to the door until finally it was inside the cook house. Then, he slammed the door, trapping the freaked out cat in the house. That turned out to be the easy part. He then had to spend hours trying to catch the cat in a sack so a co-worker could take it far away from here. After all that work, he was able to relocate a trio of cats but as luck would have it, the most annoying cat found it's way back to Matoso a few days later.
He decided it was time for drastic measures. He asked someone to pick up a length of PVC pipe when they ran into town for clinic supplies. He cut a piece about 1 meter long to use for a blow dart device with the idea of blowing seed pods and pebbles at the cats. The pods didn't work very well so he and Paul spent the next couple of days experimenting with the design of the dart. They made paper cones to fit over nails and then covered the tip in masking tape to keep it from mortally wounding the cats. They'd practice aiming at trees and the backsides of cows to fine tune the aerodynamics of the dart.
They got so good at scaring the cats away that within days they ran out of targets. Of course, that didn't stop the boys from having their fun. Jeevan just moved on to shooting at anything in the yard- cows, sheep, pigeons, chickens, goats (in his defense, the animals barely notice they're being hit). When a hen came in to peck at the crumbs on the floor, Jeevan jumped up and grabbed his tube. The chicken ran for the door with Jeevan hot on her trail and me right behind him yelling "run chicken, run!"
PS- you can read Jeevan's version of this story on his blog...www.jeevanmd.blogspot.com
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1 comment:
Darcie: That was funny. The pictures are worth a thousand words. I have to definitely add some for my blog.
Just wanted to let you know that the subscribe to e-mail thing got moved down and is no longer near the top of the blog. So, maybe people will miss it.
Cheers,
Jeevan
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