A disturbed cat nap

There were a number - an always fluctuating number - but a number of house cats. This one I think was called Apricot. He/She, would spend most of the day sleeping in the crates of clothes and bedding used around the clinic. It was a pretty sweet existence. He'd receive occasional visiting chickens and volunteers would pop by to extract towels or tracksuit pants from beneath his sleeping form.

Chickens, chickens, that reminds me of the "Chicken Dance" we saw at the Island night at the Rarotonga. What a seamless transition, seamless. The Cook Islanders are very vigourous and expressive dancers. Not for them the soft swaying of hips that you see on Hawai or old Elvis movies. Nope. They really shake it around, the guys included. The guys stomp and chant their way through dances that often tell a story of voyages, feasts or battles. The "Chicken Dance," not to be confused with the dance of the same name often seen in Adelaide nightclubs in the early 90's, told the story of a raiding party who sliced the heads off their enemies, watched them run around like chickens and then ate them. The dance was punctuated with slicing motions across bare throats and the wiping of mouths, rubbing of bellies that accompany any good meal. Mostly nowadays, the local eat fish, taro and fruit, fruit. There's so much fruit, it's as if it grows on trees.

Now, take a deep breath, there is also a steady consumption of, ready, don't forget to breathe - Dog. You don't buy it at the shop but it happens. One caller to the clinic said he had a dog who was ill and was enquiring about having it put down. Always sad but common enough. What stood out was his subsequent offer to shoot the dog himself and him asking, " If I shoot it myself can I eat it?" I bet it doesn't taste like chicken.