Talking Turkey and cats
By Natalie Hardy

I recently returned from an extraordinary visit to Turkey. It was my first trip, so everything was fresh; no preconceived ideas blurred my vision. We stayed in Sultanahmet, a neighborhood in Istanbul, and from my hotel balcony loomed the Blue Mosque only a few hundred feet away.

We could walk to endless mosques, museums and markets from there. I noticed there was a cat in our hotel who had free rein of the premises, and was fed and let in and out the door at his will. I took note and thought, “hmmm, interesting.” We walked over to Hagia Sophia, a sixth century cathedral bridging Byzantine Christendom and converted to a mosque under the Ottomans in the fifteenth century. Cats scurried everywhere on the grounds. I looked at them more closely. They appeared to be healthy, well-fed and accessible. “Odd,” I thought. The next day we trudged to the archeological museum through a persistent rain. Again the grounds were vast and cats were everywhere. They would come up to us wanting attention or a handout. They seemed comfortable in the hustle and bustle of this grand museum area. Inside, I saw ancient wood carvings of domestic cats which reminded me of the Egyptian cat deity, Bast.

The next day we walked to a shopping area of restaurants and carpet dealers. One cat per shop walked in and out of its territory in a proprietary manner. A picture was beginning to emerge. I asked shopkeepers about the cats and they shrugged their shoulders as if to say, “What is unusual about that?”

The next day I went to another hotel for breakfast. At the entrance was a yellow and white tomcat, smudged with the dust in which he had just rolled. You could tell he was an old warrior. I reached down to pet him. The owner came over. “Do you like cats?” “Yes,” I said, and told him about the Sociedad Protectora de Animales in San Miguel. “Do you know what this one is named?” I shook my head and looked at him questioningly. “D.B.,” he answered. I raised my eyebrows. “D.B.?” “Yes, it stands for Dirt Ball.” “Oh!” I said, startled. “We used to give him a weekly bath, and afterward, he would go and roll in the dirt and look at us defiantly. So we have decided to leave him to his own personal habits.” I was charmed by the respect and consideration I saw all over Sultanahmet toward these cats, who, in turn, are discreet, loving and integrated into the fabric of Turkish society.

Such charming companions are available to you from SPA, ready and willing to grace and improve your daily life. Come and meet Minerva, a sleek, loving, adult female, or Bogey, a personable, companionable male who greets each visitor with heartwarming interest. We have kittens as well! Please visit the SPA at Los Pinos #7, near the central bus station, any weekday 11am–2 pm. Call 152-6124 for more information.