A kitten is saved

I had a heart warming email yesterday from a woman I met in Essaouira about a kitten my son Jude and I rescued from the main square over there. She was a tiny kitten with a broken back leg and can’t have been more than two or three weeks old when we found her. We couldn’t bear to leave her, but returned that evening to find she was still there, crouching outside a café, where someone had left her a saucer of milk. She has now been given to new owners and christened Canelle. What a relief. On the day we found her Jude asked if we could take the kitten home, but instead we tracked down an English woman called Suzy who loves cats and spends quite a large chunk of time finding strays in the streets of the walled city and rescuing them. You could rescue all the cats, as they all look malnourished and dehydrated but some manage to get by with scraps from the fish market and old guts and offal that the stall holders in the meat market throw out. I saw cats with infected eyes and sore looking tails, and half starved. Susie is in touch with a British charity that goes over to Essaouirra www.hsam.org.uk and neuters the strays and gives them medicines. It’s a never-ending job. – Suzy took ‘Canelle’ home that evening, after we showed her where the kitten was, and took her to the vets, and then found her the new home.

We stayed in a wonderful traditional house done up in a funky style and called Da Baida www.castlesinthesand.com .Graham who owns the house with his ex partner Emma says that the cat people should be concentrating on the helping the pregnant women from Essaouira who can’t afford to have emergency caesareans and die giving birth. He has a point, but each to their own and the women who run hsam are vets, so their interest is in animals. I say three cheers to anyone, who has the time, and makes the effort to help.