Bell ringers and trapped kittens
I was woken up one day this week by a kitten crying desperately somewhere not very far from my house. Actually, the kitten had been crying constantly for the previous five days and I had already spent several hours trying to locate it, unfortunately with no success. It seemed the kitten was in the garden of a house belonging to a German couple who moved to Ayios Kassianos not long ago but are now away. What are you supposed to do in Cyprus in the situation like this? And why was the kitten crying anyway?
I remember reading a similar story in the British press. The cat got itself into a drain system and could not get out. Local people had to call the fire brigade to get it out. Should I do the same? Should I call the fire brigade? And would they come to assist a cat? The worst thing is that one can’t get directly into the garden that I suspected the kitten was in, as it is accessible only through the main building. Otherwise one can try to jump, via the wall of the church, to another garden and then on to the next. But I am not good at wall jumping. So should I ignore the crying all together? To be quite honest I am becoming less sensitive to the misfortunes of animals in this place. I can’t help all of them, plus I have my own problems and yes, I have changed or maybe learnt that sometimes help is impossible.
A long time ago it was, of course, quite different. Once, when I was living in Pallouriotissa, I made my whole neighbourhood get up in the middle of the night to help a cat down from a rooftop. They looked at me as if I was an idiot but were polite and tried nevertheless. It was however a “mission impossible”. The cat was afraid and refused to get closer to anybody. I still remember one of my neighbours risking his life to stand on the last step of a ladder trying to convince it down. “Forget it,” said the cat. “Rather death than that.”
Another time when I was in the north I found a puppy that looked exactly like my dog Zuza and, of course, even though I knew better, I stopped the car and took it in. “I will take it to the Kyrenia Dog Shelter,” I thought. It was 5pm. I called the shelter and was told it was too late. Besides, I heard, they were full and taking in only special cases. Special cases? I still don’t know what they meant. I thought of Sharon from the Nicosia Dog Shelter who accepts dogs 24 hours a day but the problem was I could not take the puppy across the Green Line as it is forbidden. It seemed my choice was either to spend the night in the north and try the shelter the next day or dump the animal back into the street and drive away. Thank god for friends. I started calling around and found someone who agreed to help.
Still quite frankly I don’t understand this ban on animal crossings. To start with, the buffer zone is full of stray dogs and cats that cross unchecked every day. And B, even if such pet transfers are dangerous for health why is there is no quarantine system in place? My Greek Cypriot friends once made a mistake and took their Jack Russell across for a walk in the Karpass peninsular. On their way back they were told by Greek Cypriot customs officers they could either have the dog put down at the check point or abandon it in the north. Even a phone call to their vet who vouched for the animal didn’t help. OK, I understand there is a law in place and they were stupid and should have checked but isn’t it a sort of animal cruelty case? Not to mention the psychological shock for the owners?
But let’s get back to the story. I left the house thinking about all of this and trying to figure out what to do in the kitten’s case. Then I bumped into Gia, our local bell-ringer, a tiny old woman with big blue eyes and an eternally unhappy face.
“A kitten. Crying. All the time. We should do something about it,” I said, pointing into the direction of the constant noise but she didn’t understand.
“Damn it. What an idiot I am. I should have learnt the language,” I thought and went back home to write this column. Now I have finished and the cry of the kitten is still there. Oh, well, maybe I will have another go at my neighbours.
