Flower With So Blooming Many!

Our little flower, Ah Fa's given birth to a HUGE litter of healthy little ones about a month ago.

Before we could rehome her, the vet found that she already had the little ones on the way. What surprised us the nine fur bundles that emerged!!! She's undoubtedly had her paws full with their constant demand to be fed. To date, all but three of the puppies have been found a home.

Unfortunately because it was still in the early days when we were trying to provide her with adequate nutrition to restore some basic level of health that she conceived, having this blooming big litter has taken its toil on her drastically. She's lost a significant amount of weight and sadly she looks even worse off than when we first met her. Not confident that she's being well taken care of at the current vet's, we're planning to move her this weekend to board with a recommended vet.

Ah Fa's been sterilised so no more of that to tax her health. Now to work on finding her a safe and caring home.

Back to work on getting her on her feet again and in good health. The positive thing is she's in good spirits and holding her tail high with a good smile. We certainly have some way to go.

Waiting for Miss Purr-fect

There’s something to be said for a broken routine. It’s disconcerting and throws things out of balance not to mention the out-of-sortness that feeds the growing edginess. It’s been four weeks now. First I waited impatiently, then I tried waiting patiently.

This was the story four weeks ago.
Three weeks on- me and feral cat, Miss Purr-fect, self-instituted resident at the hotel we currently call Home, have struck up a taciturn friendship as breakfast companions. I’m convinced she’s been taking note of the time I appear for my breakfast feed although I’ve never been able to figure out the mystery of an animal’s punctuality. If she doesn’t appear as if by magic when I’ve sat down, I stroll over to the hedge and call for her. Often she’s taken the hidden paths known only to creatures of her height. Who me?- she questions me with her eyes, stopping in her tracks. Come on over to my table if you want to, I say to her, returning to my seat. She trails behind me but is always sure to keep that little distance between us as her feral wisdom dictates.

Now that we’ve got the best table, what’s the best thing for breakfast? I run through my mental list of the spread, familiarised through 21 days of the same with some token variation thrown in now and then. Least I misrepresent the efforts and standard of the hotel, I must add that there is ample variety (though repeated) and quantity provided. I’ve offered Purr-fect the sausages and ham which are often rejected. Perhaps that explains her svelte silhouette. Not the processed food, please. Ok I get it- you Cat, me Slave. Back to the buffet table to fetch her other temptations. I take her advice anyway and follow suit- give the lovely processed food preservatives a miss. We concur on the freshly prepared options which we both wolf down in respectable portions.

I settle down to read a chapter over a coffee while she attends to her grooming, missing a grubby patch at the kink of her tail, I noted. I know some catty ways too!

I decide we’ve been acquainted long enough to attempt to give her a fond scratch under the chin. Do NOT touch me, she hisses emphatically and uses her claws in punctuation. Feral cats DO NOT subscribe to caresses, she reminds me. Another reminder from her to keep to the boundaries within mutual respect.

And so we sit in silence together, warmed by the morning sun, enjoying this taciturn relationship for all its routine. What could be more perfect!

Purrfect's breakfast later includes fresh fish picked off the beach, courtesy of the fishermen who have no interest in the juveniles snagged in their nets.

-----That was four weeks ago. We were away from the hotel for two weeks in between and she hasn’t made her appearance since. I can only hope that it was all over a territorial dispute with another cat and not some more unfortunate fate. Perhaps she has found another home by now. Such is the fragility, and heartache, of attempting to build a relationship with feral animals. For that moment in time we attempt to understand each other and I hope, find some connection, maybe affection and mutual respect.

For me it is also a clear and good reminder that we do not always call the shots and that is not always a bad thing. The issue of control, as many reinforcements in our lives might support us to believe otherwise, is not the most important achievement. This may be as Good As It Gets, and there is Much and Enough in itself.

-----Just this week, waiting for Miss Purrfect, another little one has turned up. We’ve nicknamed her Smarty Pants as she displays no fear strutting her way around at breakfast time. An altogether different character to get to know, hardly feral. I have a new breakfast companion and I enjoy the pleasure while I can, remembering Miss Purrfect and how transient many things are.

The Gathering of 24 Thousand

Last week we had a visit from K. She was in KL on a stopover back to Australia, after her tour of Europe. Her enthusiastic accounts of visits and experiences to many famous sites in Europe inspired us to drag her off to see one of Malaysia’s famed sights-the Blue Mosque. We hopped on a train out to Shah Alam to visit the state mosque of Selangor.

Officially known as the the Sultan Salahuddin Abdul Aziz Shah Mosque, (its easy to see why it's simply called the Blue Mosque!) it's the second largest mosque in Southeast Asia, crowned by a 51.2m-diameter blue and silver dome sitting majestically at a height of 106.7m above the ground. Here 24 thousand gather to express their faith.

Four minarets rising 142.2m, the second tallest in the world, carry reverberations of the call to prayer for miles around.

Towering columns and archways accentuate the feeling of lightness and openness. Light and silence surge in to fill every corner.

The elevated inner courtyard, held up by pillars and arches, a typical architectural feature of mosques, stand mute in hushed quietness- a space separated from the world outside.

Only the whisper of the winds stir through the corridors. White marble floor and walls, cool to the touch, reflect everything.

The achromatic architecture changes its mood by the moment, finding life in reflections captured. Storm clouds moving in dim and paint the passages grey, glaring bone-bleached white hurts the eyes where sun rays break through, verdant green peeps through the latticework.





The main prayer hall where only a Muslim may enter, softly lit by sunlight filtered through stained glass.

Happy New Year

Super Natural

I believe in God, only I spell it Nature. - Frank Lloyd Wright, quoted 14 August 1966

TGIM

OMG its Saturday! Sigh. Two days of the week we concede to sharing this little paradise with our like species (the kind we fear most!). We smile graciously but grind our teeth in our sleep at the thought.

Their descent is sudden and purposeful, not unlike an army of worker ants. Streaming out of buses and cars bearing plates from the big city, thronging every corner in dense columns. The different contingents fan out to secure everything that can be secured. The breakfast buffet, the idyllic poolside, the unmarked endless stretch of beach surrendered to the plundering. Everything that can yield amusement is immediately seized upon. “Make hay while the sun shines” is the mission.

We wince at the unmistakable hyped-up enthusiasm echoed in squeals, children screaming and high decibel conversations. In an instant, the cathedrals of silence and calm fall. The paradise they sought trampled underfoot, unnoticed and unmissed.

But all things pass. In 48 hours, the car park is emptied. The tangibles have been carted away by the ant army. The intangibles are miraculously restored, like a wound that heals with no scar and Nature rules again.

Paradise restored.

Thank God it’s Monday!

Trading This For That

We’ve traded this This for That- well at least for now.

THIS:

awe-inspiring Petronas Twin Tower, KL Tower to the left of it

the KL Tower, our homing beacon as we live almost at the foot of it

Resplendent statements, armour-clad in shiny metals and resilient concrete- power houses sprouting overnight relentlessly competing to dominate the skyline. Grey is the new Black. The sleepless city driven by achievement targets and ambition. Bustling with energy, seeking opportunities or to fulfil unborn dreams.

“This” is where we currently call home base, buried in the heart of the city of KL. Wedged between narrow roads posted with “One-Way” signs that seem to encourage a constant stream of 2-way traffic. Back-to-back with the business district and the main shopping area, we’ve got all the mod cons living within the Golden Triangle. Our apartment block is elbowed by other similar newly developed blocks, providing complete facilities and privacy, along with it silent corridors and closed lives. Contact with another person is the (sometimes!) obligatory brief salutation followed by a quick retreat into one’s defended space, probably during the silent shared ride in the lift. The Suits have few words and minutes to spare least it deviates from their important plans for the day. The people who take time for a conversation are the amiable shopkeepers down the street who provide me with practical tips and insights to navigating some aspects of life in this city. The elderly man who comes around the neighbourhood each evening on his motorbike selling steamed buns shouts his greeting to me with a warm toothy smile despite my irregular purchases. We exchange opinions about the weather and the buying behaviour of his customers for the evening.

view from our apartment balcony, tip of Twin Towers just visible

Fortunately our apartment view overlooks a patchwork of 3-storey apartments. This is my theatre of daily drama, rich with sounds of real life. Puppies whining, mothers yelling at their kids, woks clanging out a hot meal, neighbours gossiping loudly across balconies, laundry hung out to dry appearing and disappearing, cars playing musical chairs for parking lots on the street.

Stress in the city often results in the inevitable- a developed inability to refrain from using the horn. Deep into the night, sirens and the hum of traffic keep the pulse of the city alive. Crime statistics and crazies soon affect your walking routes and pace and give you swivel-head syndrome to constantly keep your eye on your back. Our apartment has been burgled in the quiet hours of the morning while sleep cocooned us despite our property having better security than most other places. It was not the loss of property that was most disturbing but the violation of what we took for granted was a safe space and the psychological adjustment to reality.

THAT:

hills shaped by time and the elements

room with a view and more

rural country roads winding through oil palm plantations

Surrounded by the silhouette of hills, traversed by typical meandering roads through brooding, dense oil palm plantations and colour-speckled fruit orchards. As far as the eye can see, a carpet of verdant green adorns the geography. Night is lit by the stars and street lamps are few and far between which immediately brought back precious vivid memories of life in Bali. Hefty aggressive trucks laden with oil palm, fruits, raw building materials from quarries, ply the main road, mercilessly dominating their route day and night. Thankfully they stay off the humble rural road we travel on.

We’re on the west coast of Malaysia, just north of the port of Lumut which is the jump-off point for ferries to the vacation island destination of Pangkor. The main commercial activity here is oil palm cultivation and engineering fabrication at Lumut port. The port reminds me of a mad scientist’s lab from which monstrous metal beasts, each one more amazing and bigger than the last are magically churned out overnight. The fabrication is mostly for the maritime, oil and gas industry. Before this, I had only seen such structures on TV and they’re always sitting isolated in the middle of the ocean. Here the proximity to land lends reality to the staggering scale of these ocean platforms and sub-sea structures. The fabrication work clocks 24/7. This metalscape navel crawling with life while the surrounding jungles and plantations retire at nightfall. On a smaller scale, the river estuaries are dotted by prawn farms and the scalloped coastline populated by small fishing villages.

metalscape

prawn ponds/ farms

Further away from the port in Rural City, Nature rules and dictates the order of the day. No doubt the day begins with standing out in the open under the sky, looking at signs for wind direction and speed and feeling the moisture in the air. At first light on a clear day, farm hands and plantation workers make their head start while small wooden fishing boats head full throttle out to sea or hug the coastline carrying hopeful hearts. The birdsong heralds fine weather ahead just before daybreak. Macaque monkeys living in the swampy mangrove along river inlets get busy with hunting for mud crabs and then hang out on electric cables chattering at passing vehicles. This is now my theatre of drama and watching and listening to the changing moods of the elements.

morning birdsong conversations

the palette of blue

Here I have found my connection to place, where all the five senses are dilated to the pulse of stone, cloud, wind, storm, water. This is the taste of the earth.

Love Or Hunger?

Which would we choose to satisfy first if we were starving?

love

OR

hunger

The thing that striked me most about my daily visits to Chuyia/AhFa was a ritual she established- to put it more accurately, she shaped my behaviour with her! Despite her emaciated condition and the obvious that she was always ravenous, she was determined to engage me in spending substantial time indulging in affectionate play before even giving the warm home-cooked food I’d prepared a sniff. To me, at first this seemed ridiculous. How could anyone ignore their screaming hungry stomach and the yummy smells coming from the doggy picnic bag. It took me awhile to figure out what I think might have been going on for her.

To her, love or perhaps more accurately, bonding was more important for her survival. It makes sense for a pack animal that spending time on affiliating activity and bonding with a pack will ensure better chances of survival. Consequently, bonding activities are high on the priority list before fulfilling hunger needs, as basic as hunger might seem. She did however always end up enthusiastically gobbling the home-prepared brown rice with chicken and liver mixed with dried food.

Harry Frederick Harlow was an American psychologist best known for his maternal-deprivation and social isolation experiments on rhesus monkeys, which demonstrated the importance of care-giving and companionship in the early stages of primate development.

Harlow separated baby rhesus monkeys from their mothers, and offered them a choice between two surrogate "mothers," one fashioned with terrycloth, the other with wire.

In the first group, the terrycloth mother provided no food, while the wire mother did, in the form of an attached baby bottle containing milk. In the second group, the terrycloth mother provided food; the wire mother did not. It was found that the young monkeys clung to the terrycloth mother whether it provided them with food or not, and that the young monkeys chose the wire surrogate only when it provided food.

When the monkeys were placed in an unfamiliar room with their cloth surrogates, they clung to it until they felt secure enough to explore. Once they began to explore, they would occasionally return to the cloth mother for comfort. Monkeys placed in an unfamiliar room without their cloth mothers acted very differently. They would freeze in fear and cry, crouch down, or suck their thumbs. Some of the monkeys would even run from object to object, apparently searching for the cloth mother as they cried and screamed. Monkeys placed in this situation with their wire mothers exhibited the same behavior as the monkeys without their cloth mother.

The importance of bonding and contact can hardly be undermined in influencing behaviour and holistic well-being.

I have since received help from an independent animal rescue group in the first steps to re-homing our Little Flower. Her owners were very willing to give her up as they already have an additional 2 puppies from her first litter and were not willing to part with the expenses required for her sterilization. Then the perennial dilemma of whether she was better off re-homed, as that did not always ensure a safer and better future for the animal, or was it better for her psychological well-being that she continued her free-ranging life on the streets.

The situation was such- she was not going to be sterilised by her owners and should she conceive again, she lacked the nutrition to sustain a healthy state and would probably pose a burden to her owners who didn’t want any more dogs. She was free-ranging in a dangerous, constantly busy street intersection. If she ever needed any medical attention, it seemed unlikely that she would get it. On the other hand she was used to roaming free and occasionally restrainedH. How would she take to being re-homed and confined in her new home? We decided to take one step at a time and get her sterilized first. Not knowing anybody in the city still new to us, I was touched when the animal rescue vet took the effort to drive an hour from her clinic in the suburbs, arriving at 10pm that night, and whisked Ah Fa off on the return one hour journey back.

Since my only friend in the city moved away, it has left me a little void accentuated by worry. She’s boarding at the vet’s as we found out she’s pregnant! So she’ll stay put, have her puppies, wean them and then be sterilized and re-homed. It all seems like a long, new journey to me and I wonder what she thinks. We have since made several visits to Ah Fa. She insists on our routine of overjoyed jumping and nuzzling, eloquent kisses and shy requests for strokes.

On my first visit, my heart broke to see her lying quietly in a cage, a fraction of the space she had before. I wondered constantly, with shades of guilt, about what the artificial, caged space was doing to her. Time told us her story. She holds her tail up now, ears picked up and inquisitive, no longer holding her body close to the ground and skulking like she did before. She vocalises her joy at seeing us and barks! She’s no longer in survival mode! When I sit with her on the sidewalk outside the vet’s, she curiously sniffs at passers by when before she used to startle easily and run off to hide when strangers passed by.

Despite being in a confined space, her confidence has grown. There is no doubt of her psychological well-being and it shows in her posture and vocalisations. She has the assurance of two square meals a day, a safe space and kind vet assistants nearby.

Ruff Life For A Flower

September 09- I’ve made a new friend in KL who lives about 5 blocks away from where I live. I first noticed her maybe half a year ago or more on a short trip to KL. I spotted her skulking around the streets, weaving her way amongst traffic and hurrying crowds on the street. Amazingly I encountered her again perhaps a few weeks ago and then more recently a week ago which prompted me to trail her, curious to find out more about her.

Following her, I found out where she lived- in a dark car park under a dilapidated block of low rental apartments. Through unwashed windows and some broken ones, metal double-decker bunk beds could be spotted, squeezed head to toe.

home for some

She’s a lovely dog with handsome markings, about a year and a half old. Weary of people but with soft eyes. Since I knew where she was taking shelter, I dashed across the road to the 7-Eleven and returned to make her acquaintance with a savoury loaf.

wearing a new collar I got her in hope that she might avoid incidences

of abuse on the street if it indicated that she belonged to someone

What had caught my attention when I first saw her was her state of severe emaciation. She wore nothing but her skin stretched over her small frame of protruding bones with little trace of muscle tone. She ate the loaf cautiously, keeping a watchful eye on me.

I returned the next day, this time with proper food and found her restrained by a short length of chain, attached by a short, stiff length of electric cable to a pillar in the car park. She recognised me this time and said so with a little wag. It took some time to coax her to eat what I had brought her. This was the beginning of a new routine for her and me. I began to visit her twice a day, starting her off with small meals so as not to overload her system as it looked like she had hardly been getting food.

In no time our cautious relationship evolved into something we both looked forward to each day. Some days she would not be there. Having been let off her restraint, she probably took the opportunity to scavenge the street dumps for food scraps. I worried incessantly about her as her neighbourhood was a chaotic criss-cross of streets jammed packed with irate drivers.

I've since met the older couple whom she belongs to. Him, somewhat reserved, her, somewhat intimidating with their curious and suspicious stares. They are care-takers of the car park, charging a mere RM2 per hour. What is home to them is a basic lean-to from which they can keep a good eagle eye on the car park. Their lives seemed to have no more frills than their dog's.

We've called her Chuyia- which we understand means "little mouse". I've learnt from naming numerous pets that having their names end in long vowels makes for good and effective hollering at meal times. Giving her a name was more for the practical purpose of being able to get her attention if by chance I spotted her on the street or if I needed to call for her when she was not where I was hoping to find her. In time to come, I found out her first given name by the couple who kept her. She was named Ah Fa, which in Cantonese meant "Flower" which is meant to evoke images of an irresistible fragrant willowy beauty.

A month has passed and she's looking more like the good stuff flowers were meant to be. She's let go of her reservations and greets us royally every single day. It's not often and a long time since anyone has greeted me this way.

a month of proper meals

still working on a more ideal waist size (bigger!!)

One and a half months since our friendship began, we're all happier in our own ways.

November 7, 2009

nothing like a catch-up over a good pat and scratch