Cats in Egypt

This was an obvious topic, because if you’ve ever visited Egypt, you know they are just everywhere. Cat is a classic here since the ancient Egypt, although I doubt the main reason for Egyptians these days actually is a show-off for the tourists.

I mean… all those people here seem so proud of ancient Egypt heritage, they are selling fake statues and papyrus and charging you insane money for anything connected with that period… and those how left it here for them are not even their ancestors! We can presume at least they have few common genes because everywhen anyone conquers some land it’s inevitably followed by mixing gene information inbetween conquerors and those conquered. Does this help?

Second possible explanation is those guys here’re just turning everything into money. Anything what can produce money is good enough. And they’re getting better and better in it! I bet they’re even making money with stuff, which by rules of economics can’t do that. Why not to turn cats to a profitable item, much better even, not by selling them but only by showing them off :-). And just all those cats here really look like ancient Egypt cats you see on papyrus or drawings inside pyramids or temples. Thin, longlegged, with almond-shaped eyes and long pointy noses.

As good as it sounds my best guess is a reason quite different. And (of course in Arabic country) more practical: cats hunt. I never saw a cat in Egypt to hunt anything different from some tourist’s dinner or trash, but because of a fact Egypt’s large cities are not drowning with rats and mice (and count bugs in too), I think they hunt them too.

Someone sometimes in past decided that cat is good to keep around your house to limit that ill stuff. It might be even those ancient Egyptians with who Arab Egyptians have nothing in common (except few genes). I mean… there’s to be something behind the fact they worshiped them (almost) like a deity. Cats were always difficult to keep around. They just ain’t dogs. I bet they didn’t change through the ages and they listened to food during ancient times as well as these days. The worshiping thing is just another level. Much later it changed and nowadays those cats are difficult to keep off. It is much easier for men to get any food after all. Egyptians seem not to care about the fact that much and they’re drowning in cats rather than rats. We (cat-lovers) don’t mind at all.

So there’re cats in streets, there are cats in restaurants, cats in shops, sometimes there’s a random cat in your bed… when you sit somewhere there are cats jumping on you almost instantly… Just use your imagination and anything pops on your mind there’s a cat in it, at it, on top of it or at least around it in Egypt. If you happen not to be a cat-lover, well, don’t go to Egypt. Or just stay in a 5-star hotel in Cairo and pray (whatever religion you are) :-)

There are like 15 cats in Bishbishi somewhere close around you all the time (for any reason good enough for any and each of them). Some only for feeding reasons, some even just to get a hug. Starting with cute little male-cat we call John, who is the biggest hugger of them all, at the end with an obviously pregnant black female-cat that we named just “a hole in space” which is insanely fast with stealing food from people’s dishes and right now she just decided to sit on / next to me as I’m writing this.

I think I did not see anyone (during those few days) who would really mind any cats here in BishBishi. People are just trying to protect their food from time to time and avoiding at least those cats that look really ill and bad. Actually it is not hard to keep cats off you in case you don’t have any food at the moment (and vice versa).

In Funny Mummy, which through those 3 years of its existence became one of the most famous restaurants in Dahab, there are like 5 major cats (I guess). I don’t know if they’re not getting mixed with neighbour cats from neighbouring restaurants, but considering cats as very territorial animals, I bet it is working that way in this case too and they’re not. Mummy is a lay-down restaurant (as any other on the beach here in Dahab) so your food (if it’s not on your knees or something) is on a table approx. 30 cm high. It is a convenient height for you to eat - I’d say - “Roman style”, means like half sitting / half lying down, as we know from ancient Rome. And it is also a convenient height for cats both hide under it and easily reach on it. Hard to say if there are some really annoying cats in other restaurants around, but in Mummy I never had a problem with too much pushy cat. More to that everyone gets “a gun” on the table, which is a plain sprinkler filled with water. Yesterday I saw one cat who did not mind that at all, giving a hard time to a diligent waiter.

What is the funniest thing about cats in Funny Mummy (and they could easily rename so) is the environment itself. Some of the tables are on lower ground some on higher one, there are few spots with growing date palm trees and few other bushes around. Laid down palm tree logs and pillows have to be taken into account. That, all together, makes literally a jungle for the cats to hunt in. All the time you can observe some cat hiding under the table or inside a bush around growing date palm trees or speeding around tables jumping through gaps between pillows and guests trying to avoid restaurant’s personal with an awesome skill. I think National Geographic should definitely do a documentary about that! “A Life of a Restaurant-Jungle Cat”.

A word of caution: you cannot experience this kind of fun with cats anywhere in Egypt, try to visit some smaller place, not a mil-pop-city.

A note about dogs:

Dogs are unlucky critters in Islamic countries, because Mr. Mohammed once (very long time ago) decided they are dirty and not good to touch if you wanna preserve your good health and they’re just screwed from that moment. There are many dogs to see around, everyone’s just handling them as trash. They’re handling street-cats as trash as well, but like kinda more precious trash :-) Simply to say, as a Muslim, you just don’t wanna keep a dog around. That’s a bad idea.

It is much the same as with pigs. In their case though, Muslims are those unlucky just for not to be able to enjoy the taste of pork. Decided is decided, screw the modern era!