Sunday, November 26

Jaffa Cats - the pampered ones and their competition

Some of Jaffa's cats are quite lucky, lucky to have been born in the city's wealthier & gentrified areas, where good souls feed them on a daily base & take them to the vet, whenever that need arises.
They can be recognized quite easily: big, well fed, self assured. They don't run away when you come close to them, jumping and hiding in the closest bin.
They gather at the correct hour when they know the food will be arriving in its steady spot, in throw away containers.
They even allow themselves to be picky, not eating everything on offer.
You can stroke them, they are quite used to human attention, in fact seem to like it.

I made a few portraits of those cat feeders, many of them women living in the area.
Yesterday i noticed a homeless guy picking up a piece a chicken from one of the cat trays, after the good, well meaning, cat-feeding lady had left her charges.
Hunger makes people do things. I wonder if the cat lady knows her charges have competition. The cats accepted him as "one of them", i might say. No hissing, no scratching, they are well fed and certain of their daily dinner.
Unlike the competition, the homeless guy, obviously hungry and not so certain of his daily dinner.

Jaffa, winter 2006





2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Cats better looked after than some people... and some other cats, for that matter.

Nizo said...

Great non-cliched way to discuss the poverty issue.