Harry

I got back from Uganda a couple of months ago and found a cat on my porch. And by "on my porch," I mean, if cats wore clothes and my porch had a set of drawers, his would have been neatly folded and put away - no luggage in sight ... this cat had made himself thoroughly at home and was giving me a look that said "well it's about time you showed up - what's for dinner?"

Cats around here aren't usually the friendliest animals ... not that they're mean, they just tend to be skittish and shy, so I was both surprised and pleased to discover that this cat was not your average Tanzanian cat. Skittish and shy are definitely not his MO - friendly and demanding is more like it. As for me, I've been waiting 9 years to live in a cat-friendly environment (i.e., not a dorm and not with my brother), so I promptly started bribing the cat with tuna fish to discourage him from moving out. (After a few days, I decided it was ridiculous to spend more on cat food than on my own food, so I switched to table scraps ... turns out cats will eat pasta, vegetables, beans, and basically anything else if they're hungry.)

It also turns out that this cat has a serious set of vocal cords on him - and he's not the least bit shy about expressing his outrage at being ignored. As soon as he hears me wake up in the morning, the yowling starts ... as soon as I go read on the porch or let him inside, though, he curls up on my lap and turns into the purring little engine that could. A spoiled brat one minute, the most affectionate animal I've ever met the next.

When he first showed up, I spent a few days trying out different names for him. I'd settled on "Mlizi" (noisemaker) when I mentioned him to Eva and she said, "oh? you mean Harry?" And for some reason, ever since I found out that someone else had already named him, it felt wrong to rename him. But since I'm not a big fan of the name that person picked, now I just call him "it" or "cat" or "you."