OCTOBER 1, SATURDAY

CATS

Everywhere you look in Essouira you see a cat, every twenty feet. We also saw cats everywhere in Istanbul three years ago. In downtown Asheville you never see a cat. But for some reason I’ve never wondered why I never see a cat in downtown Asheville. I have seen a bear crossing under the street light opposite Heiwa Japanese restaurant, but no cats. I did wonder what the bear was doing there. It did seem that in Istanbul there were places where people were feeding cats. I never wondered why. Cats in Essouira are especially thick around outdoor restaurants, so I assumed the cats here were simply scavengers if I assumed anything at all.

But there is a reason for everything. When renegotiating my Airbnb, because Susie and I are taking off eight days early to explore Morocco by car, I also asked the owner, Karima, who lives in France, what I should do about the garbage filling my garbage pail in the kitchen. She told me to put it outside the house on the street, our five foot wide lane, after 11 p.m.. Apparently, in Essaouira someone cleans the streets every night and picks up the trash daily. I’d never wondered why the streets were so clean here either. There is no recycling here. Everything goes into small plastic bags, except one thing, she said. Put any food you don’t eat during the day on a piece of paper for the cats.