Our first
tale is about my baby. She doesn’t really have a name since I’m horrible at
naming things, but mainly I call her Kitten or Monkey. I was walking home from
school one day last month and she came up to me on the sidewalk and started
being friendly. She followed me home where I fed her milk and fish. I don’t
usually have either, but kitty got lucky. She hasn’t tried to leave since
because it’s generally warmer inside and she gets fed. Sleeping at night is
always an adventure because the colder it gets, the further down into the
sleeping bag she goes. It would be fine if she didn’t use my face as her
pathway every single time. She gets all sorts of whiny whenever I have to get
up in the morning and make the fire which I understand completely. The other
morning she put her paws on either side of my face and gave me a kittenkiss. Then
she bit my nose which wasn’t very nice, but still. Leaving for Thanksgiving was
hard because I do worry about her. Luckily, despite their initial misgivings,
my HF has warmed up to her and takes her into their house whenever I’m gone for
the night. I came back after four nights away to find them petting her, holding
her, pampering her, and talking baby talk to her. They gave me the list of the
destruction she caused It was completely adorable and she got fat during those
days. The best part is coming back after being away because that’s when she’s
the cuddliest – she was never very far away and sat on me whenever she got the
chance. It’s been a few days so she’s over it now, but I have to go back to UB
for IST in a couple weeks, so I look forward to more kitty lovings after that.
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| The reason I call her Monkey |
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| Baby's got the right idea - always sleeps where it's warm |
Tale two –
In order to get to UB for Thanksgiving, I took the bus from Erdenet to UB with
a few other PCVs. About halfway, we stopped at a little “restaurant” (they’re
not quite restaurants or cafés, but I can’t think of a better way to translate
it) in order to use the outhouses and grab snacks or something to eat. The four
of us were standing around outside just killing time when we heard this
persistently annoying meowing. We look over to the building and see a cat on a
wall and a dog on the ground. The cat was trying to make friends with the dog,
but s/he was having none of it. As we watched, someone joked that the cat was
trying to flirt with the dog. We all had a nice laugh until we realized it was
true. The cat eventually jumped off the wall, still meowing, and started
hesitantly making its way toward the dog. I’m not sure if it’s possible to
strut hesitantly, but that’s the best way I can think to describe it.
Eventually they met and after a pause, we witnessed a cat and a dog kissing.
The dog became embarrassed, dropped its head, put its tail between its legs,
and walked away ashamed. It was so fabulous. On the way back to Erdenet, we
heard the same meowing, but apparently it was a short-lived relationship and
they were no longer together.
And now we
come to the last tale which also happens to be my inspiration for this post. I
have Tuesday afternoons off, so I came home with the sole intention of napping
away my Thanksgiving-induced sleep deprivation. I was finishing off an episode
of Glee (Darren Criss, how I love you) when I heard a meow. Monkey doesn’t
usually meow unless she’s being annoying and jumping all over me because she
wants something and at the time, she was just napping on the floor. We both
looked up and looked at each other with all sorts of confusion. I went outside
to investigate and discovered an enormous ugly orange cat sitting outside. Not
ugly because it was orange, but it was dirty and icky and and generally
unpleasant. I said, “Oh hey cat,” and went back inside with the plan to forget
ever seeing the cat. Next thing I know, I hear the sounds of something climbing
my ger and look up to see that fat cat sitting on top of my windows. It just
chilled up there for a few hours, until it started getting dark. Around 5pm
(aka when it started getting dark), it discovered that a portion of my roof
only has a poorly taped plastic bag as a barrier against snow and cold (it
fails miserably at both) and decided it wanted to come inside. I spent the next
two hours or so trying to keep the cat out with a broom. I failed and the
kamikaze cat made a jump from the roof that I can barely reach standing on a
stool with my arms outstretched. I’m not tall, but it’s still impressive.
Especially considering it used the hot pipe of my stove as leverage. It then
sprinted around my ger as I tried to chase it out and ate all of my cat’s food
before I was eventually successful. It of course climbed its way back up and
tried again. The hashaa boy heard me yelling at the cat, took it away, and it
just came back 10 minutes later. When he and his father came to deliver my
first load of coal, they took the cat and locked it in the garage. That’s where
it is now. I don’t know its fate and I really don’t want to think about it. I’ll
just assume it gets tired of me, decides to not mate with my cat, and goes to
terrorize someone else’s ger.
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| insane, and not in a good way |
Moral of the
story: Mongolian cats are insane
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