James

British in Cambodia

 

No fluffy kitties were harmed in the taking of this photo.

 

Mother cats will grab a kitten by the scruff of the next to transport their young to wherever they are going. The kitten goes limp instinctively, to this cat I am its mother.

 

One day I walked by the local Buddhist Wat and found a small kitten ambling her way out of a sack that had been casually discarded on the pavement. Initially I ignored it as my pragmatic nature instantly did not want to deal with what I saw. Unfortunately for me and the empathetic sucker that I am, I had a momentary lack of self control and I returned to the kitten. She was there, crawling, meowing and in distress. Deciding to investigate further, I looked into this abandoned sack to find 2 other kittens along with their recently deceased mother.

 

In Cambodia, where life is cheap for people (presumably it is in the bargain basement for animals) there are not a lot of places for those that are not wanted. So, the only place to carelessly discard them is next to the Wat where presumably the Monks will take care of them in their benevolent holiness.

 

So, I took these cats home and raised them myself to the point that I am their mother, hence the deference pictured here. It is one of the few things that gives me a sense of home in Phnom Penh. On a side note, weetabix and milk too, they are gold dust in this part of the World. So, fluffy kitties, weetabix and milk.