I've been battling mice in my house off and on for the past year. Before I had my mom send me mouse traps in the mail, a simple (i thought) solution would be to get a cute little kitty cat that would grow up to be a gentle but skilled mouse killing machine. Even though I've never been much of a cat person, I'm even less of a mouse person so I thought it would be a good trade off. I mentioned to one of my neighbors that I was interested in a child of the feline type and by the end of the month I had baby cleo in my house. Cute no? (I just figured out how to add pictures to blog posts. ps check out all the new pictures i spent forever uploading!)
The full story as to how I came to own Cleo specifically is one of betrayal and heartache, so I'd rather not get into the details, I'll just leave it at that. Me and Cleo got off to a pretty good start. She was a little scared of me for a while, but I didn't hold a grudge against her for it, particularly because I thought she was a boy for a few days so I figure we were even. She eventually warmed up towards me. A little too quickly and a little too much, in fact. And this is where our problems started. Whenever we were in my house she just had to be within 0-1 inches of me. Even after I tried having a civilized conversation with her about how I need my personal space also, she just didn't get the point. I sat on the couch to read, she wanted to look into my eyes. I am cooking a meal, she needs to figure out how to get on my shoulders. I'm packing my bags, she needs to figure out what it takes to make me lose my mind. That kind of thing. When we were in Atakpame it got a little better because she could stay outside and I could stay inside and we were both entertained enough with one thing or another. I think the only reason she lasted about two months as my pet rather than two days was because I could lock her into my kitchen room and get things done in peace in my bedroom.
My first attempt to fix this little, furry, and only sometimes cute, problem was to make an offer to Emily. Emily had gotten Wrigley exactly one day after I got Cleo and Cleo and Wrigs got along well. So I asked Emily how she felt about taking over legal guardianship of her. I even offered to pay child support. She considered it for about 5 minutes. I kept on trying to convice her to take Cleo, and when I realized my attempts were going no where, I started asking other PCVs. One of my new clustermates said sure. But not till January. I thought I could handle that. I thought. You just get a breaking point though.
So one day me and Alicia are on our way back to village and I am bringing Cleo back from Emily's house. I'm not really thinking Cleo is being cute in any way, shape, or form this day. I stop to buy her some dinner and the little girls at the stand take an interest in Cleo. I (half-jokingly) ask one of them if they want her. Cadeau. The little girl looks nervous as I hand her the carrying case. I only took her back because Alicia reminded me that they might end up eating Cleo for dinner. Then we came across a nice Peace Corps Training Center guard who happened to mention how beautiful Cleo is and how great it is that I have her since she'll keep mice out of the house. I like this guy and I made a nice gesture and offered to give him the cat. He was so excited about my offer and he is such a nice guy that I felt no remorse on my taxi ride back up to village that day. In fact, just last week I was at home peacefully reading on my couch and I took a moment to appreciate my Cleo-free house.
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