September 5, 2007
There is an episode in My Family and Other Animals, a largely biographical account of Gerald Durrell's childhood in Corfu, in which he describes the weird behavior of the French consulate in Corfu who had a beautiful, plump and well-groomed Persian cat, and who was acting as a temporary French teacher while Gerry was "between tutors." Every 20 minutes or so, while in the middle of patiently listening to Gerry mangle conjugations, the consulate, who sat looking out the second-story room's window, would suddenly leap up, grab an air rifle he kept on the window-sill and fire. When he turned back to Gerry, he would be dabbing damp eyes and would sit silently for a moment before instructing Gerry in proper French pronunciation.
Gerry wondered if the consulate was carrying on a feud with the neighbors across the alleyway, but decided there couldn't be that many cousins and besides, no one ever fired back. After having his lessons violently interrupted for a few days, Gerry finally asked about the shooting. It turned out that the consulate, who adored cats, could not endure the sight of the mangy, starving strays all over the city. Since he couldn't possibly adopt them all, he shot them to put them out of their misery. (By the way, Durrell is only one of the best and funniest writers ever to grace the English language and I cannot recommend his books highly enough.)
The first time we traipsed over to Greece I was reminded of this story because I wished the consulate was still around. Greece must have millions of stray cats, all very badly off: flea-bitten, half-starving, mangle-eared, broken-tailed. They just all look so sad. The only difference with the equally numerous stray dogs, who look just as miserable and abused, is that you have to be a little wary when you see them roaming in packs. Nothing ruins a vacation like a round of anti-rabies shots.
Morocco wasn't any easier on the strays. My third week there, the driver from Marrakesh pulled in front of the hotel in Azilal where we were going to spend the next few weeks in training, ignoring a dog who'd been laying in the gutter, forcing it to move out of the way. As it did so, dragging its lower body slowly through the litter, it was immediately clear that it's lower back had been broken. I lost sight of it through the window as I burst into tears. And then there was the donkey with the broken leg who'd been left to die right outside my window. I managed to make a spectacle of myself in public by sobbing wildly over him, too, as I tried to get him to drink water from my bucket.
There are strays all over Mad, too, and it's heart-wrenching to watch them. I've realized I only need thirty seconds to decide if I like a city or village, based on how the dogs around act. Trotting briskly with head and tail up may not guarantee they're lavished with affection from the inhabitants, but it does mean the dogs don't live in fear. On Sainte Marie the dogs were all relatively well-fed and eager because of the tourists, but in Ihosy the dogs didn't have vacationing pet owners to ease their way. They slunk along the walls, trying to look in all directions at once to avoid the 10 year-old boys with rocks, tails tucked permanently between their legs. Ihosy was not a city I liked.
Pets, in the Western sense, are really a product of a large middle-class with the luxury of disposable income and excess time. In poorer areas a dog is "owned" if it's thrown the occasional scrap as a way of getting it to hang around acting as a quasi-guard dog and a cat may be fed once in a while so it will act as a mouser (though really, no one ever owns cats even in the West), but broadly speaking, animals are badly treated in poorer areas. But I wish they could all be as well-cared for as the old French consulate's Persian.
