Electric Fence Zine: Mauritius

This is a true story.

Pictured above: My consent to interview forms after Kiwi bit a large chunk out of the stack.

Not only is Kiwi our fattest, most voracious cat, ss you can see, he's also rather indiscriminate when he has the munchies.

Nevertheless, inspite of Kiwi's interference, my fieldwork got off to a wonderful start this week. On Monday, my 3-person research team visited 3 garment companies and administered 55 surveys today, which is an all time high. Tomorrow we will be traversing l'ile again to carry out 60 more. Thus, after 10 days in the filed, we have completed nearly 200 surveys... leaving 4 weeks to carry out the remaining 500 to 600. Suddenly seems managable.

Returning to the previous thread on crafty cats, check out what Marley, the mother of all our no-longer-very-"wee"-ones succeeded in doing last Sunday.

photo taken around 3pm:


photo taken about 1 hour later:



That's right.. she successfully knocked both cushions off the couch and arranged it so that the second one was stacked perfectly on top of the first.

Mon dieu... it's amazing the things you can do without opposable thumbs...

Labels: cats, research

Posted by east of madagascar at 1:19 AM | Permalink | Comments

On Monday, our beloved cat ChouChou turned up dead in a neighbor's yard. ChouChou, who shared his name with one of Mauritius's most enigmatic legumes, was all that you could hope for in a pet: he was warm, affectionate and doting. For example, most mornings when I took my shower, ChouChou would stand just beyond the curtains and wait for me. He also was a heroic figure to the other cats, who often fought amongst themselves for the opportunity to cuddle up next to him.

As I saw it, ChouChou's fur color furnished indisputable evidence that God, provided he or she exists, has a wry sense of humor and a keen appreciation for irony. As an all white cat, ChouChou's fur left a visible record of his misadventures. For instance, ever since March when we got ChouChou fixed, his bottom has been flanged with bright purple streaks... Apparently, veterinary antiseptic products double as permanent hair dye (although, pointedly, none of our other cats remained purple-bottomed for long).

As someone who never had pets growing up, I certainly wasn't expecting to house a small troupe of felines upon my move to Mauritius. However, that said, my cat's companionship has been wonderful and I love them as if they were my own furry, four-legged, meddlesome kids.

Alas, rest in peace ChouChou, you will be missed by all.

Labels: cats

Posted by east of madagascar at 11:26 AM | Permalink | Comments

My chiffre des chats (cat total) has climbed up from 6 to 8. Marlee, the mother of almost every cat in our household, moved her new litter into our house a few weeks back..


The new arrivals are Little Monkey (see left) and a cute orange cat that is as of yet unnamed because of its unveiled hatred for us.

Now that most our kittens are full grown cats, the novelty of being the Quatre Bornes "cat house" has truly worn off. Despite the insistence of locals that cats can subsist on rice, our cats only dine on $12 bags of whiskers, and more importantly their appetite is insatiable.

If you do not feed the cats to their satisfaction, they will follow you around the house whining until you do. Or, when they are especially persistent, they will turn a corner and follow you on your three-block walk to your friend's house, and then wait outside the door until you leave (This, sadly, is a true story).

At this point, my roommate and I are easily spending $60 a month on catfood,

which is absolutely ridiculous. Even though Mauritius is Sub-Saharan Africa in "quotation marks," it's not difficult to think of how far that money would go in other parts of the region.

Not only is $60 a month easily more than I spend on my own groceries, it is also the basic salary of an EPZ worker in Kenya, and the amount it costs to send a kid to public school for a year in Tanzania. Suffice it to say, if I only could donate to a single charity, it would not be the Quatre Bornes Cat Preserve.

Anybody want a cat? If you ask nicely, I might even pay to ship them over to you... I'd be surprised if international courier services cost much more than our cat food does.

I'm at least half serious...

Labels: cats

Posted by east of madagascar at 7:28 PM | Permalink | Comments