The Man from Africa

My new supervisor, Dorothy, and I had an appointment to keep with a client who had a poultry farm and had complained about the uneven growth among his flocks of chickens. The meeting was to determine if the cause of the uneven growth was due to inadequate nutrition or due to overcrowding. I could tell that Dorothy was eager to have the meeting over with and I assumed that she probably had a family emergency. With a client that had a hundred-thousand-dollar account with us, I was very sure that only a family emergency could explain why she was snappy and hasty during the meeting. I was really amazed when I later found out that all the drama had to do with her cat. Her cat was sick that morning and she had taken her to see the veterinarian who had recommended that she should be put down. That was what all the fuss was about even at the risk of displeasing a very wealthy client. At the veterinary clinic were the cat was put to sleep, Dorothy cried profusely over the death of her cat and I was very embarrassed about the situation because the only time that I have ever witnessed such shedding of tears was over the death of a relative and not a cat. In Nigeria, some people keep cats as pets. The cats are used to control the rat and lizard populations in the communities. Lizards can be found in the open in every nook and corner of the country. They could be sited on trees, walls, fences or on parked cars. They are usually harmless unless you leave food items unattended, in which case, they help themselves without asking for permission. The most salient way to tell if a household owns a cat is to watch out for lizards in the compound. Where no lizards are sighted, it would mean that a cat is definitely present in the compound. The cats are never provided for, in terms of food or bedding materials, because their job is to keep away the lizards and rats by feeding on them. Therefore, for those cats that can do a good job of chasing and hunting down these pests, they would have sufficient food to eat while for those that are unable to chase and hunt, they would starve to death. There are no adequate veterinary services for cattle and poultry and as such, it would be unimaginable that there would be such services for cats and dogs. My aunt went to graduate school in England, U.K. where she absorbed the western culture and brought home some cats, males and females, after her graduation. You could imagine the consternation among my uncles and aunts when they witnessed how she took care of her cats by feeding them with imported cat food and milk. My grandmother could not comprehend why the cats would be provided food fit for human consumption. I can still remember how my uncle screamed in disbelief when he witnessed the cats drinking milk from a bowl. Another of my aunt was very furious when she discovered that some pieces of fried fish had been fed to the cats. My brother flung one of the cats through the window when he visited and found the cat taking a nap on the couch. The cats soon gave birth to some kittens and some weeks after the kittens have been weaned, my aunt thought it a good idea to give them out to some of her family members and acquaintances that needed cats to control the lizards and cats in their compounds. Perhaps she forgot or she failed to realize that the people she gave the kittens to never went to school in England or believe in feeding imported food or serving milk. My uncle really had a lot to whine about. His cat never hunted for food by killing and eating the rats and lizards. Instead, it hung around the kitchen and the dining table waiting to be fed cat food or to be given milk to drink. I was visiting his house one day when I witnessed the straw that finally broke the camel’s back or the final straw as they normally say. The cat was lying by the couch apparently listening to our conversations when a rat came dashing out from behind the couch, heading towards the cat. The rat seemed startled momentarily by the sight of the cat but then dashed off to a different direction. As would have been expected, the cat was supposed to give a chase, catch, kill and eat the rat for lunch. Instead, the cat took fright and hid between my uncle and I. That was more than my uncle could take and he exploded with rage. My visit with him was over because he needed to return the cat to my aunt. He would not provide shelter for the cat for one extra minute. He would not entertain a worthless animal that did not know how to take care of itself. This is not Europe, he exploded. The cat would have to adapt or be sent back to Europe to live the white man’s ways of life. How can a cat be expecting to be fed fish and meat when a human being does not have enough to eat? We arrived at my aunt’s place shortly after and he flung the cat onto the floor in her sitting room. It was then that we found out that my uncle was not the first person to return his cat. Over the last two weeks, other people have been returning theirs’ too and as a result, my aunt was not a very happy lady at all. She had become too westernized and could not understand or perhaps chose not to understand why people were not happy with her cats. Well, she had a big fight with my uncle, accusing him of being a retrogressive person who refuses to modernize and move with the times. My uncle thought that accusation strange and wondered why my aunt returned to Nigeria after her studies if Europe was such a great place.