The Price of Saving Abandoned Animals in Cuba

By Ananda Villares

HAVANA TIMES – An animal protector spotted them: five kittens in a dirty cardboard box, at the entrance to a market. Just born, with their umbilical cords recently cut, and nosing around amongst themselves to get warm.

Why does this have to happen to me?” the young observer asked herself. “I already have too many animals and a small child! With an aching heart, she took a picture, sent it to another protector, and went on her way.

The recipient heard the ping of her WhatsApp notifications, opened the message and thought: When will this ever end? What more do people want of me? I have nothing left to give!” But, unable to ignore the photo, she drafted a post and uploaded it to her Facebook page, along with the photo. She then tried to resume her difficult daily routine – she, too, was already responsible for too many dogs and cats, all of them street rescues with harsh, nearly tragic, histories.

But she couldn’t stop thinking about that photo. She went back to her phone and pulled up the post: no one had reacted.

The knot in her chest became a brick, that kept her from thinking or moving on. She couldn’t resist anymore. She got dressed, grabbed a small cloth basket, and headed down the street in the direction of that market.

When she arrived, only four kittens were still in the box. Of the four, one had already gotten out and was dragging itself along in the dirt, its skin an alarming purplish color.

She arrived back home with that mass of tiny, curled up creatures, blind, with signs of dehydration and hypothermia. How was she going to find the time to care for them? Her son, also an animal protector, stared into the little box with anguished eyes. They were moved into his room, and from then on his life would be interrupted every three or four hours. The kittens needed a lactose formula that mimicked the mother’s milk they were deprived of. They demanded cleaning and stimulation to expel their urine and feces, since they couldn’t do it themselves.

The yellow kitten, the one that had arrived blue, died that same night. It was so diminutive they buried it in a flowerpot on the balcony, beside the roots of the oregano plant.

For the young protector, many nights followed when he barely slept – heating up the lactose formula to the perfect temperature, in order not to burn the little pink mouths, then watching the kittens suck avidly at the syringe, their fragile paws flailing the air, vainly seeking the heat and the irreplaceable softness of the maternal womb. When they were satiated, they had to be put next to plastic bottles, with water that was warm enough to keep them heated without harming them.

What could have happened to the fifth kitten, the one who disappeared from the box in the market? The youth wondered sometimes, trying to keep his mind from conjuring up images of mistreatment, something very common among children and even adults, due to the undeniable lack of empathy and of laws in Cuba to inhibit such deplorable human impulses.

Days passed, leaving their toll of accumulated fatigue and tiredness. But the reward arrived one morning, when he spied a tiny open slit in the closed eyes of one of the three kittens, the one they called “Pity.” By that time, they knew there were two males and one female.

Pity was also the first one to try and escape from the basket and seek adventure, taking comical, and shaky froglike steps, in an apartment that was too big for him.

Later, “Bright,” named for his radiant presence, opened his eyes. Bright was the greediest eater and most robust of the three. A little white spot at the end of his striped tail distinguished him from his little brother and sister. He didn’t like to venture far from the crate, though, and preferred to suck on the syringe until he fell asleep.

The last one to open her eyes was “Amrit” (“nectar of life”), the light-colored one. She wasn’t adventurous, or robust, nor did she eat very much, but she was the one most demanding of her human Dad. With her enormous eyes and intense gaze, so small, charismatic and self-absorbed, she promised to grow into a cat with a large personality in the future.

“Promised?” “Future?” One day terror struck, as Amrit expelled nearly a dozen worms. In baby animals, this isn’t at all good sign; her human father knew from experience that these parasites multiply and grow until they strangle the budding little creature.

Knowing that Pirantel, a very expensive anti-parasite medication here, is very effective in kittens and could save her from these monsters, he ran to a local veterinarian to buy it for the three of them.

“You’re crazy! Kittens can’t take Pirantel until after they’re a month old,” the doctor explained almost indignantly. Her conclusive tone left the young man stunned. In his heart, he knew that the medication could save the little kitten, who he’d left writhing in pain, but his intuition conflicted with the doctor’s authority. Very few veterinarians respect animal protectors’ opinions, even though these are based not on manuals but on direct experiences with lives lost and lives saved, among tears and sleepless nights.

The young protector left the clinic with mixed feelings, full of doubts, fearing that if he procured the medicine through another veterinarian and insisted on giving it to the little Amrit, he’d be responsible for her death. How could he bear the regret? But then again, how could he bear watching her agonize?

Ay yi yi! It was a terrible night – for Amrit and for him.

In the wee hours, she began to cry without stopping, louder than ever, and nothing could soothe her. She refused to eat or pee, and only lay tense, with no possibility of relief. Her body was dropping further and further into the darkness, until she let out a smothered cry and stopped moving.

Now the inconsolable sobs were his, and the stabs of regret. “Why did I listen to that woman, knowing she never really cared about the fate of the animals she attended? Why? Even when I knew that Amrit’s life or death made no difference to her.”

He could only blame himself, for being weak, for being tired, for not having had enough presence of mind to challenge her judgement.

The little body of the kitten with the innocent eyes, who had demanded so much up until yesterday, was buried in the same flowerpot, beside her yellow-fur brother. The life that had abandoned those two filtered down into the roots of the oregano, which after some days came out with unusually large leaves of a beautiful, brilliant green.

Bright and Pity also needed to be comforted, since even with their cloudy vision and unsure steps, they felt the absence of their sister.

They covered her absence by cuddling together more, playing clumsily, and displaying astonishing coordination in their rolling around and resting.

They’re adults now, strong, proud and incredibly mischievous. But when they hear the voice of their human Dad, they run to answer his call like the most obedient and grateful of creatures.

The Cuban animal protectors give of themselves in a service that’s unpaid, under ever more challenging conditions. The general crisis in Cuba has left a toll of ever more animals left abandoned in the streets, due to lack of resources or the exodus of their owners.

However, incredible as it may seem, the protectors find the strength, because as Antoine de Saint Exupery says: “Love is the only thing that grows when it’s shared.”

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