Foreigners In Foreign Land

“I suspect that most are not just ordinary cats i mean, this one is over fat, over overfed, over strong, over cat. You need to see it in action”

“ How can cat be strong enough to chase two three years old dogs away?- I don’t believe you. This is the exactly exaggeration”

“ Exaggera… what?- I am telling you what I witnessed firsthand and you are doubting?”

“ I heard that the cat is big from Anthony but the part about chasing two dogs and people away, this is my first time of hearing that part”

“ Oh! I see. You believe Anthony's part without doubt but my part is what you don’t believe? So if it came from Anthony, you would have believed it without doubting, right?”

 That was Chris narrating the experience he witnessed at the Catechist house to his friend Josh, a fellow Mass servant At all Hallows parish church. Both are eleven years old and had been serving mass since receiving holy communion three years ago. 

The catechist Mr. John Mmuo had been catechist in that church since his father who was the catchiest in that church died five years ago. It is not as if the post or the family has a kind of monarch instituted on the post or something but it is a kind of appreciation, an unwritten one being observed by the parishioners not even the parish priest only.

Seventy-five percent of the land the Church and the priest's house is built on belongs to that family. The land is not what people give away easily in this tribe. Other has lands purchased for them somewhere else as compensation but Mmou's family sacrificed theirs, God, as the ancient story surrounding their monopoly on the post of the catechist goes. I mean if you consider 1935 as ancient which it is by African standard that year is like ages ago year in the mind of the people both old and new. You will always hear something like: “Shit, 1930s? Ha, ancient time. Please, tell me something modern”

To think that that family is seen and given respect that equals that of a priest would tell you the respect accorded to them in the church in the whole town. The churches helped with all pleasure in their own little ways to set the family up. One of the the catechist sons will in two years time become a priest and the first son just returned from abroad after five years of education and a year working there to become the assistant GM at the soft drink company in the state capital. He was the one that came from abroad with the fat cat that has no fears of anything in him like many people that have seen it are describing it. 

Many that had been opportune to enter that compound have attested to that. Chris might have exaggerated his observation but from what Josh can glean from others’ narratives, that Chris'account isn't far from the truth. 

The returnee had came back with a half cast he described as wife. People that had been able to see both the wife and the cat is confessing to others that the two beings are unique but the cat is in the class of its own. In Many mind, it is difficult to know how to qualify the cat and the lady.

Both sure look like humans being. The cat that big, by the people's testimony, they have never seen and the woman is in-between black and white in her composition and complexion and that was first for most too in real life. 

So, for some days now they had been in their midst, that family had been selecting visitors especially older people that kept dropping in to see things for themselves and none have came out without his or her mouth full of stories.

That was where Chris claimed to be of gate service for the better half of yesterday and Josh is tempted to believe him but his friend is well known for his dormant imagination and exaggeration talent he have failed to develop.

According to him, while on duty controlling the crowd that came in numbers to see things for themselves, one woman had wandered into the compound with two young dogs on her heels. The dogs must have been heavily surprised like the humans in seeing the cat and the woman and reacted only the way they were expected to do. They barked and barked to establish their authority or express their fear. Their noise annoyed the cat it intended to frightened. It reacted by jumping on top of them and made its own noise that elicited fear and cowering both from the dogs and humans. Pandemonium eschewed. People and the dog were running helter-skelter and was falling on top of each other and jam-packede the gate they were meant to escape from.

Meanwhile, the cat, maybe in awe at seeing blacks in large numbers in a place had continued to scream on top of it’s voice and people continued to fall on top of each other in fear. It was an awesome and hilarious sight to behold.

Before the catechist's son and his wife will come out to quell the mayhem, much damage has been done. Many were injured and Josh was busy according to him helping the seriously injured to get first aid treatment first before shifting them to the hospital.

The chunky cat must have noticed that both creatures it regards as enemies are cowards of the highest nature. The Way it is observing the mayhem unfold before his eyes, was something else happening for the first time in his life. It had gone back to its original position near the short table there to lie down and the looks on its face are vivid that even the blind can read them.

“What is wrong with them, can't believe what I am witnessing can't they fight back? These colored humans are different somehow even in complexion to those in my former base America that looked like them. Even the way they gawk at you will tell you more about them. It is not so lovely or civilized and they don’t know how to mind their business.

 Do you see how that kid at the airport pinched my ears?- ha, if It wasn’t that I was informed prior by my master, ha! I would have acted first and bear the consequences later”

The cat Chris later learned was called Polly and polly seems to have more brain than humans that came to see him. It Couldn’t but wonder how this kind of nonsense could ever be possible in America. It sat more with what Chris can only describe as laughter and amazement of the highest order. When all the ruckus have subsided, it follows its master back into the house to make a call to a distance land as polly tagged along. 

“can’t fail to record this hilarious incident into my long-memory. You never know how many like this will be coming up. People over there in yonder need to hear about these people my master brought me to”