Magnolia's return

Some of you know that I have a cat named Magnolia. For those of you who didn’t know, I’m sure you can finally die happy knowing this vital piece of information concerning my life in Benin. She’s named after my idea of heaven on earth, Magnolia Bakery in NY.

Magnolia was probably the most spoiled cat in this country, that is, before she decided to run away when I took her to get her rabies shot at the local “veterinarian.” I say “veterinarian” in quotes because the sign only says veterinarian even though the women sitting outside of it are selling things like soap and bananas. Anyway, this happened about a month ago, and I kept looking for her and asking people if they had seen her. No luck.

I figured that she wasn’t the most street savvy cat, having been locked in my house for most of her life. I knew she wouldn’t last a week on the “mean streets” of Pobe, and after a month, gave up on the thought of finding her.

Then, the other day I was walking around the marche and figured I might as well ask the woman selling chickens if she has any cats for sale. This sounds like a really strange demand, but the women in the marche who sell chickens and goats also sell things like cats, dogs, and turtles. I told her I didn’t want to buy one today, but that I was just looking. She did say that she had one cat and that I could see it if I wanted to. I said OK, and the woman brought out this big tied-up burlap sack. I already knew I would probably end up buying whatever was inside the bag just to save it from its misery.

She slowly unties the sack and I look inside to find Magnolia! My jaw drops instantly and I ask her how much. 1500CFA or about $3. I actually paid that much when I first bought her and was kind of annoyed that I would be paying that again to buy back a cat that was already mine, but I figured it was worth it. I didn’t want to argue with her that it was already my cat because she probably would have made me pay a ridiculous amount to get her back.

I didn’t have a sack of my own to take her back home, so the woman lent me her giant burlap sack and asked me to return it the next day. Not wanting to walk the 30 minutes back to my house with a terrified cat in hand, I decided to take a zem (moto) which probably scared her even more. She was crying the whole way home and I thought how odd it would be to see a white girl on the back of a motorcycle carrying a meowing burlap sack. I suppose I’ve done stranger things, but nothing really comes to mind at the moment.

In other news I’m heading to Senegal for 3 weeks! I’m going overland through Burkina Faso and Mali and will then head on to Dakar, Senegal for WAIST (West African I…something Softball Tournament). It’s a tournament for all Peace Corps Volunteers in West Africa. Our team name is The Fighting Squirrels. It might sound weird that a furry, woodland creature is our mascot, and yea, it is weird, but we actually chose it because the Beninese national soccer team mascot is also the squirrel. I have no idea where that came from, but will let you know as soon as I find out. I’m fairly certain that squirrels don’t even exist in Africa, but I was also fairly certain that I wouldn’t get my cat back and look what happened.