Cats

Sitting on the boardwalk, munching nachos,watching the Gulf. It's a warm, muggy evening on the gulf coast boardwalk. No wind, a touch of sea salt in the air. Dimly lit, crowded but quiet. The boardwalk runs along the shore in downtown Kuwait City. It's a popular place to spend a relaxing evening. Young couples come here on dates, families gather for picnics, teenagers meet up and just hang out. And the cats come out every single night.

There are feral cats everywhere in Kuwait. Every day at dusk, skinny, half-starved felines come out from basements and stair wells and run in the streets. They dash through crowds of people, begging for handouts and scrounging for food. In a city with a shortage of mice, rats, and other vermin, cats are about the only urban wildlife around. Every dumpster has at least two cats in it. Every restaurant has a dozen outside.

The cats live surprisingly well. Most people give them their table scraps, and nobody seems to mind having a cat dig through their trash. I suppose some of those missing mice and rats end up in feline bellies as well. Dumpsters are diners for a hungry cat, and people are roaming food stands. Mice must be dinner and entertainment combined.

These cats are everywhere. They're like a separate segment of society. Along this boardwalk, I see Arab women dressed all in black; Indian men walking hand-in-hand; Filipinos, who somehow look more American than most Americans do; and calico and tiger-stripe tabbies chasing, playing, begging, and fighting in the streets. In this cultural crossroads, the locals speak Arabic, Hindi, Tagalog, and Meow.

Comments

[blue]

In dumbsters you either get rats or cats. We prefer cats :)

Nice Blog and hope you stay here long enough to enjoy life in Kuwait.

[Gigi]

Hi :)
I really liked this post and the one about the BarberShop experience as well. It's interested reading about Kuwait through other people's eyes :)
I just thought I'd bring your attention to www.kuwaitblogs.com where you can find a list of other bloggers situated in Kuwait.
I also recommend getting yourself added to the www.safat.kuwaitblogs.com aggregator so more people can discover your blog and keep up with your updates more easily.
Meanwhile, hope you drop by my blog: QQQ !

Oh yeah and welcome to Kuwait :)

Gigi, neighbourly

[bitzer]

I'm doing my part to keep the kitten population under control.

/b

[mishu1984]

me and my cousin used to shoot them around our mezraa (farm) in the summer with an M4A1 which is still lying around somewhere in my house or mezraa back in kuwait. they used to eat the chickens and we had nothing better to do.

[peach]

Bitz .. mishu .. who is the beast and who is the man?

lovely, *wipes a tear* just lovely .. i'm glad u took notice of our cat population :)they are my pride and joy .. I'm driving my dad crazy, i keep bringing in strays and taking care of them behind his back lol only last night he was complaining about the number of cats outside our door .. what he doesn't know .. is that i feed them tuna and cat food everyday :P I already have 2 cats i'm allowed to have so that's not too hard. number of cats outside my door? 5 that I know of; three 6 month old pure black one (i know they are 6 months cuz they were born at the same time my kitten was born), Cookie (she's pretty friendly so i think she's a house cat gotten rid of) & a cute lil tiny thing that's new to the neighborhood :) last night i didn't see for myself .. but my brother told me there were at least 9 cats out there lol so theres another source of nutrition for u :) ppl like me :P do ur part .. feed the cats.

[mishu1984]

Peach: its all nice and dandy that you feed cats. but i will gladly shoot them over and over in my mezraa. do you know the amount of diseases they carry?? do you know if a cat just touches a chicken, you have to get rid of the chicken?
shoot the meowing little buggers

[Peach]

Well, in that case maybe it's a necesity :P I can try to understand that. ONLY because it's a necesity :)

[Adrian]

Korn!! Hey man looks like you are having a good time out there in Kuwait. Wish I could have gone, defenitely an experience of a lifetime.

If population is such a problem why don't you try to get the animals spayed/neutered. Killing them won't fix the problem and neither will feeding them (though I'm not adverse to the feeding, but without getting them fixed you'll just end up with more cats than you can feed). Killing them for sport is not acceptable unless you mean to eat your kill. Otherwise its just a waste of life and disrespectful. If you have nothing better to do then you have no imagination and threre's something wrong with you. If it is necessary to kill then it should be quick and clean. Killing should never be a game or sport.

[Ameera]

I love all of the cats. If you are killing them, you are a sick person. The cats are not as infectious as you are. Get an education before you post ignorant info. If you are a Muslim, then you should know better than to behave like that. Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) loved cats. I am an American Muslim living and working in Kuwait. I have 5 cats from the streets. I try to catch the ferals in my feeding colonies so that they can be spayed or neutered (TNR). God bless the others who are gracious and caring as well.