local wildlife

A few days before I came, a litter of kittens appeared in the courtyard outside. Apparently this is not the first litter in recent weeks. The first ones either grew up and left or met with more unfortunate ends. These little kittens have been adopted by all the neighbor girls, and are regularly fed milk or some sort of food, and given lots of attention. However, of the four that started, only one remains. One was run over by a car, and two seem to have run off. At least I think this is how the story goes.

Anyway, Carrie has taken quite a liking to the remaining cat, and spends a lot of her time with it. I took the camera out there to get some pictures. Here is her transporting it to a better location for a picture:
When we protested the way she was carrying it, she defensively pointed out that that's the way the mother cat carries her kittens.

Here she is up close:
Then the other sisters got in on the action as well:
A pretty cute kitten, I will admit. Cute sisters, too.

However, that is not the only creaturely distraction that this fine city has to offer. It also boasts about seven hundred thousand stray dogs. Disgusting stray dogs. They usually reside in the most public places, namely bazaars. They are often fairly fat, and incredibly mangy and dirty. Often flies hang around them. I rarely see these dogs moving. Instead, they tend to be sprawled out somewhere in the shade, sleeping. So revolting. Here is a sampling, from the bus stop we were at on the way back from the bazaar yesterday:
It's hard to convey photographically, or even with words, the effect, both psychological and aesthetic, that these animals have on me and the appearance of the city. But anyway.

To keep you from having bad dreams, or whatever else all of this may provoke in you, I offer one more picture of Cute Carrie and the Cat: