While in Kenya, when a couple of friends departed, we inherited two neutered cats. They could not have been more different. One was a marmalade coloured male that went by the name of Tigger. The other one a seal-point Siamese female named Inky. While Tigger was an indoors fat and lazy youngster, Inky was an outside cat and an excellent hunter that forced us to make our bird feeder and bath cat-proof to prevent a disaster.

When our time to leave Kenya came, we were very attached to them and we decided to take them with us. After the needed health certificates and a special double box that would enable them to have eye contact through wire mesh, we were ready to go. The plane trip was not too far as we were going to Addis Ababa.

It was an easy trip and we found no difficulties on arrival at Bole airport. However, negotiating their stay at the Harambee Hotel in Addis Ababa for the days needed to prepare our long trip to Bedele in West Ethiopia was more time-consuming and it required some protracted negotiations. Eventually, permission was granted, provided that they remained inside our room!

After a few days, our travel permits were ready, we had a vehicle, petrol and petrol coupons as well as a stockpile of food to last us for a couple of weeks. We were ready to set off, at last. The journey from Addis Ababa to Bedele via Jimma was about 420 km in terms of physical distance but because of the traffic -particularly people and livestock walking on the road- it took the whole day to complete, with a bit of luck!

Auspiciously, our maiden voyage went well and we eventually arrived in Bedele in late evening. We managed to get the keys of our cottage from the Administrator of the Veterinary Laboratory and moved into the house we would live in during the following two years. That night we camped in the house as we were only able to travel with the few possessions that we could carry in the pick-up. Our furniture and other household items would arrive later via an FAO lorry as, at that time, there were no moving companies operating in Ethiopia’s countryside.

Immediately after arrival our cats got on with their job: Tigger found a place to sleep and Inky started to inspect the house and its environs while calling for attention, before settling down with us to spend the first night in the Ethiopian bush. Starting the following morning, our interaction with our Ethiopian and foreign colleagues assisted us greatly to settle in and, with the arrival of our belongings a few weeks later, we managed to make the place quite comfortable. Eventually we developed a very good vegetable garden and, while Tigger relaxed, Inky was active keeping garden enemies at bay.

Unexpectedly Tigger started to follow Inky during her sorties to the outside world, cautiously at first but eventually accompanying her on her hunting expeditions although we did not think much of his contribution!

It was during an evening that we were involved in book-reading while listening to some opera music, our favourite evening activity in Bedele, that Tigger stunned us. It all started when we heard a kind of meowing that was new to us. Fearing some cat tragedy we immediately went to investigate its origin. We did not need to go too far as we met Tigger while entering the house carrying something in his mouth, followed by Inky.

As soon as he was under the entrance lamp we could see that he was triumphantly carrying in his mouth the most humongous rat I have ever seen. While I was amazed to see this my wife was consternated as she has a problem with rodents, particularly rats and mice. It was not a Giant rat or a Cane rat but one of the grey rats that are a pest the world over. But it was a “super rat”!

I failed to calm things down by saying: “he brought the rat to us to show off…” Before I finished my sentence, I noticed that the rat was alive and, sooner than I could say anything else Tigger let the rat go inside the house! I expected that he was just playing with it as normal cats do but, to my dismay, not only Tigger but also Inky (the huntress) were looking the other way while the rat made frantic efforts to escape from the house!

The situation was a bad one and I will never know why he opened his mouth! My theory is that, as soon as he saw his catch under the house light, he got so terrified that preferred to forget the possible glory and cut his losses! Although I failed to see it at the time, today, many years later I can understand the cats’ reaction as the rat was a true monster. However, I am still to forgive them because their indifference meant that it was up to me to sort out the situation!

Mayhem followed the rat’s release! My wife climbed on a chair threatening me with going on a cooking strike if I did not kill it while the guilty cats disappeared with their tails between their legs!  I was alone with Super rat! The first thing I noted was that it had no plans to surrender peacefully. As usual, it was fast and it immediately found a crack in my defenses and it squeezed through a badly closed door and got inside the kitchen, the worst scenario as far as my wife was concerned. My situation deteriorated by the second!

I followed it but when I entered the kitchen and managed to switch the light on, the rat had vanished! Swiftly, my wife slammed the door behind my back, oblivious to the fate of her husband, and then it was Super rat and I in a duel to the death, if I could find the villain.

Although our kitchen was a small affair it was rather packed with goods for us to survive our rather isolated life in a war-thorn country and away from shops! I had a look and realized that the rat could have been anywhere and that to find it would have been a laborious and even dangerous task that could prolong well beyond midnight!

So, I procrastinated -not for the first or last time in my life- and sat there for a while before announcing the rat’s absence to the incredulity and displeasure of my wife. However, she eventually though reluctantly accepted the status quo. Swearing at the cats we went to bed and, luckily, the following morning I opened the door of the kitchen and convinced my wife that the rat had gone. It worked and I was thrilled to be unharmed.

The rat incident forgotten, our cats continued to live regal lives, enjoying the large track of land surrounding our house and stalking the various birds that visited us. Luckily, I did not see them catching any but they did repeatedly ambushed a “rescued” Egyptian goose we kept for a while until it decided to depart, and watched for hours on end a pigmy kingfisher that was brought to us by a boy from the village and eventually released. They also enjoyed playing with a young duiker that outsmarted and outran them all the time.

As they seemed to be well entertained and busy, I cannot understand why they decided to expand their circle of friends and get in touch with some wild neighbours at the back of the garden…

We learnt about the new situation when we started to hear a high pitch barking in the evenings that we attributed to foxes. Eventually we saw them at about one hundred metres from our house, near the perimeter fence of the station. After watching them for a few days we identified them as a pair of side-striped jackals (Canis adustus) not without some surprise. We decided to keep the find to ourselves for fearing of they being chased off or killed.

We realized that the jackals were residing under some heavy iron pieces that should have been an incinerator that was never assembled. Our sightings became more frequent and then we realized that pups had arrived so we derived good entertainment from them as we saw them often and heard them every night.

One day the cats were nowhere to be found. At first we were not alarmed, as occasionally they would temporarily disappear. However, when they did not turn-up by the afternoon, we decided to search for them before it was too dark. After fruitlessly checking around the houses, we extended our search to the compound, increasingly worried.

Eventually we saw them at the bottom of the garden, in the area where the jackals were! “Gosh”, I thought, “They are dead meat” and run towards the area to see what I could do while cursing them for their stupidity. When I got closer, however, I noticed that not only the cats were unharmed, but that they were engaged in a kind of hide and seek exercise with the wild jackals, both adults and pups!

I then realized that this was not a new development but a relationship that had existed for a while and a kind of “friendship” had developed between our lazy and well-fed cats and the wild canids. I left them alone and the cats returned to our house later unharmed. The cat-jackal interaction continued for a few weeks but they never came close to the houses and eventually, when the pups matured, the jackals moved off.

As for the giant rat, a few days after the jackals’ disappearance, while blindly searching for some cans in the kitchen, I touched a hairy and warm “entity” and realized that this was not what I expected to find. Careful removal of the surrounding cans and jars caused the rat to jump out -almost hitting my face and stopping my heart- and run off into the open, never to be seen again. I believe that Super rat had taken residence there since the time of its arrival.

Luckily my wife was not there while I removed all evidence of the presence of Super rat. It was a tough job that required that I cleaned the nest in which I could identify shreds from some of my working reports and documents that I thought I had misplaced!