Paka

I will continue to try and post as much about Zanzibar as I can in the coming days while the trip is still fresh in my mind. What I've learned over the years (yes, strangely, I have been maintaining this blog for years, in one of my more onanistic chores) is that sometimes the best blog posts are just snap shots (much like one of Matsuo Basho's haikus from Narrow Road to the Deep North). Provide the image or the moment or the scent or the taste and the memory, or even the imagination, will take care of the rest. So here is a picture of Paka, the eponymously named cat (Paka is cat in Swahili) who prowls the grounds of the Dolphin Bay Resort in Zanzibar. She is young and on the small side, and had the bad habit of appearing out of the darkness during the nightly power outages to mooch for food - often waiting until the lights were completely out before bumping up against your leg. It was a little unsettling even if you knew she was coming, and maybe especially because you knew she was coming as you waited with an almost Hitchcockian suspense for the inevitable. Still, she was a more welcome visitor than the popobawa or voodoo midgets (but more on that later). I am sure she will be a lot happier when business picks up, especially since she is pregnant.