Backpacker with strays 1: The Strays

We came out to this idea in the end of December after we left our part time job. 

Waiting for scholarship and living in very very thrifty (like usual actually) life. >_____<

The hormone of adventurous and love in doing programmes hit our crazy minds who love to come out with funky ideas. 

 

My mascot. 

Kidding. 

The first kitten we encountered at Waterfront.

 A shop seller's heart liver, not mine. :(

  

Depo has a rival, recently. 

We call him Jahat cause since his existence, Depo daren't return to his place but to hide somewhere elseee.

 

Okay, let's start this journey.

 Checked weather a day before.

So we decided to go backpacked with the strays biscuits in our bags, using a very low budget.

I got this inspiration from my sister and brother who always leave a packet of cats biscuits(with pink packaging) and they would feed the strays whenever they encountered some. 

This virtue opened my eyes and gradually I establish a tighter bond with the strays with the support from my bestie, Nicky. Comparing to the past where we buy chicken and fish from cafe, or collect bones from our food, now we are getting used to feed strays with pets biscuits with us where ever we go and eventually it turns out to an ideas that we are going to make it to a higher level to involve more people in such action. It reminds me also on a event in the Central of Kuala Lumpur where people gather once a month to give food to the homeless. 

Out of no-money income reason, we try to save money and go around all possible places to survey for strays biscuits.  

 

At Jalan Gartak, Kuching. I told Nicky  to tell the Chinese lady boss to get us 500gram of doge food. The lady looked at me and asked me in Mandarin, "For who?" "
Err. Cats biscuits for cats and doge biscuits for doge." Said while swallowing my saliva. maigoat.

During our way down to Kuching town, I told Nicky that I don't know if our lil tiny efforts works vis-à-vis many people out there who do larger effort like brother and sister who adopted strays and some other who shade shelters for strays. She pat me and said " This is our effort, affordable effort, with our own time and energy. No one is going to tell you this is useless effort." I feel better off hearing to this katak, Thank you for supporting all my ideas, I know sometimes my ideas are crazily funky but I believe she is totally augment this "program".

Ok, we both are retired organizers we have to say.  But the genes of doing program still in our veins.

Meanwhile, we are actually aim at hitting two birds with one stone: Get ourselves out of works, articles and books after days, to look for lil thingy, walk into the places that vehicles couldn't reach, seek for weird stuff, look at peoples living, squeeze into lanes people seldom stare with a budget of RM 15, no longer driving but explore all public transport and route, with a water proof bagpack and a pair of sport shoes.

Am going to blog this in a different post later on. 

Sooner, we encountered many adorable strays, what makes the strays INSIDE campus and OUTSIDE campus is that the strays outside are poorer. Seriously. They are more frightened and scared of the creature called human. Strays inside campus are less vulnerable to human ill doing like chasing and ill treat, Err, except for doges. But believe it or not, doges are far tender than what you think they are. 

Days after days since 28th December 2015, we have made it a habit to feed them, sometimes we have our strolls around with bottles of biscuits,just to release tension from all human world problem and mingle around with the strays, at least they don't lay shit on you. OK, all they care is the biscuits on our hand, I know. 

  

 These are part of the strays we encountered in different time and places.

Mek Nyao: Before we met her under our apartment, I heard her whenever I am poo-ing in the loo. Ok sorry this is awful but this is true. Whenever am doing my business or having a scrub on my body, I heard a very sharp and undefined meowing. I told Nicky and she wasn't sure about it either. Until Elsie, our housemate told us the same and Tadaaa I have Geng! This was what I felt when I know Elsie did hear the same as me too. Heee.

On the morning when we were off to take bus to Kuching, we saw Mek Nyao. Quickly she ran towards us, with a lil (only a little) hestitation. Guess she was too starving. 

I told Nicky she looks like Nyao Nyao, my brother's biased daughter. 

So we decided to name her as Mek Nyao. Mek as in Ms in Bahasa Kelantan.

 

 

 

Another afternoon when she meow under my window and we went down to feed her. 

She had her lunch until she was full.

Then, she licked her body gracefully and....she slept at the staircase until she was awaken by us. 

Her left eyes seem to be a lil bit smaller than the right one. It is apparently evident espcially during day time...and a close-up. 

 

One fine night, again we shook her with our bottle of biscuits and of course she came without any surprise. Suddenly she acted insecurely  and hid behind the wall. Then we found that, Foxy the handsome boy cat was just a stone's throw from her place. 

No wonder. We said. 

All our job was to persue her and told her in way like:

Err.. Foxy is good, don't be afraid.

 

Photogenic, agree?

I love her paws. 

DepoBoat:

The third  stray after Foxy and Mama Cat we met since we return uni for postgraduate study once after Internship. 

Mama Cat was the first cat we met after our return. A very very very tender lady cat. Everytime am freaky down I went down to get her accompanied.

 

Foxy, on the other side, is rather afraid to be approached. Very hard to get near him. Recently, when I went to rooftop, I saw his three lil children. Exactly same self-protective like Foxy, angry and fierce face.

Book Book Beh, my heart liver :(

Okay, back to Depo Boat another cengeng lady cat.
 We were on our bus transit to working place when we saw her.
The first time we met her, she was very skinny especially in her neck part. She reminds me of my beautiful black cat, BookBook Beh far at Vastcomp my intern place.

We were thinking to bring her back to West Campus by bus. The bus driver agreed too. But after several discussion with Nicky, we decided not to do this. Firstly we were skeptical on her tummy. Seems to have just delivered as her round tummy went "Poooo! Dissapear". So we came out to a conclusion on not to selfishly decide any decision for her but to make our time to visit her everyday. Anyhow that is her place, her territory with no any competitor except those aunties and uncles who sayang her everyday. Hee.

Sooner, we visit her more frequent. There was one night when we passed by depo bas (the name of our bus stop in East Campus), she sat quietly on the bench like she used to be. The feeling of heart chilling overwhelmed. Nicky looked at me and we both seem to have similar feeling.

 

 

She loves to eat slowly and walk around before she continues another round of bites.
How classy she is ya. 

 

 One fine night when we return from the first Kuching backpacking, we visited her again.We shook the bottle but she didn't appear. Suddenly we saw her running from our opposite direction, the quicker we shook the bottle the faster her paw pushed her body to ruuuun. How adorable and I thought of BookBook Beh again. V____V

 

 

 

We name her Depo Boat, a very traditional way of naming a cat. First we meet her at Depo Bas , Boat means Bus in Nicky and mine's dictionary. :)

PokGing: I would like to shout out "Am very proud of youu Nicky!"

For years she has shown me that a real devotee loves her religion by action not words. She is the only one who tease at me for less eating chicken and meat but still tell me to do it that way; laughed at me for not killing mosquitoes and saving lil ants but indirectly tells me that is a good virtue and she does the same!; ignore me when I told her it is better not to purchase on leather made shoes but she ended up double checking the shoe label see if it is made of genuine leather. Believe me, she is not trying to give me "air muka" but she used to tell me, she learns the good from me. And so do I, learning her good from her. :) 

Tuhan loves you always, Katak.

Pok Ging reminds us of #GongGong and #WooWoo. He was having his nap beneath the bench when we passed by. Nicky pushed me slightly to show me this lil kid. As we ran out of doge biscuits, we gave him all the cats biscuit cos sista told me before dogs need more than cats and Nicky agrees too to give all to him(we respect each other in everything including getting consent in feeding as we share the money to buy strays biscuits.)

Pok Ging is a puppy, Nicky is a muslimah. Proud of her. She once told me this: It is important to make friendships that are deeper than gossiping and drinking and smoking and going out. Make friends who you can go get breakfast with, make friends you can cry with, make friends who support your life goals and believeeee in you. I don't know where she copies this but I do appreciate her in making this friendship wonderful. Every friendship brings moment to me, regardless of harsh, sarcasm or pain, thank you for letting me to learn. 

Proud of you, Nicky for she knows every animal is equal in God's sight.

Pok Ging is named after another bigger doge, Pok Pok(Tompok) who has all dotted spot on his body. This lil puppy automatically called Pok Ging, Ging as in "puppy" in Nicky and mine dictionary. 

One fine evening when we came back from stroll with strays, we saw these two kind students from Faculty of Engineering, sitting there to play with Pok Ging. We sat down and asked if we can give him some biscuits. So...we make new friends! Tadaaa. Ok this is normal I know. The highlight here is there are many angels around. Amen.

Picture by Sharly Bong at S.O.S. Save Our Strays Kuching Facebook Group

On the second day of New Year, we went for a stroll around campus after trapping ourselves with journals, mainly to visit the FB hot news main characters, the 9 new born puppies in Cempaka. A kind student posted a picture in S.O.S Kuching, asking for help. Amrit whatsapp me the similar screenshot and Nicky told me as well. Uncle Ivan, my brother also helped to share a click in FB depsite he is far away at Selangor.

We search every where at Cempaka until we met mama doge under the staircase. She was very very weak and stinks. Babies were sucking her nipples which made her to be very weak. 

Like other students, we tried to do what we could by posting this on FB, thankfully many kind people commented and was eager to adopt the puppies. Mama doge needs good food and care, I assume.

White Fear: After visiting the legend 9 puppies, we continued to walk down Cempaka. We stopped to give this handsome boy a dinner. What heart aching was that he was eating in fear. Yes fear. You know that kind of feeling when you wanna love this jerk but you're afraid of being hurt but you just wanna love because you're so into it but there are soo many buts and then, you love in fear. Ya, like that. Okay, my comparison is hilarious.He was indeed eating in fear because afraid that other competitor would come over him for the food.

You know this world more than we do, baby. I salute you.

So we further down the road, like Journey to the West. We stopped by again by the passage to thumb ride a cat. Oh well, is to stop him to offer a dinner. Similar to White Fear, he was very alert and self-protective.  All you need to do, is to slow talk to kid like this. Slow talk with the motherly smile you supposed. My mother-talk failed, he walked away. My work then was to pick up all the biscuits and put one by one back to the bottle hole. It eaten up some of our expenses actually do you know, meow? Grr.

 

However, you wonder how he ended up in this beautiful harmonious picture with the handsome big black Along ahead him, right? Teehee.

You should trust us, baby.

PokPok: The last station was back at our apartment.  Before we went up the block, we spotted PokPok. The one we suspect to have a kinship with Pok Ging. He was alone down Block A when we tried to lure him with our magic bottle. Then, he ended up eating with his tail waving. 

Don't mention it, PokPok. We are glad you didn't mind we provide you with the cats biscuits. Does it suit your taste?

Another fine evening when we were waiting for bus to bring us to DepoBoat at East, Shy Shy came with a group of his friends. He was the only one who was left out while the rest dispersed in different directions. Beats me, we never know they have the emergency role call from where. 

So Shy Shy was looking at us like this. 

Nicky took her courage to hoop down from the bus stop bench, squatted down to pour Shy Shy some biscuits. I was proud of her and capture this moment. Proudly I encouraged her to step ahead, or she will always afraid of doge even though deep in heart she is not.

PokPok and Pok Ging:
Another night when we went out to get our mommys some pocket money at the ATM, we stopped by to feed PokPok and Pok Ging who were loitering on the roadside. The lil PokGing tried to overtake PokPok by eating his portion despite he was given a portion as well. So they ended up eating like this, very "cat-style". You know what I mean if you keep cats.

The other day we met PokGing and PokPok again on our way back from office. 

PokGing ran towards us with his flipped ears. Finally we could feed them with the fresh doge biscuits we bought from Masjid Street.

Laughed out really loud when I saw this shot by Nicky.

 Mak Dara style looking at the crazy act by this lil puupy, so kepo to follow PokPok wherever she goes, whereby I have already given him his portion at the other side.

Last Monday, we decided to get ourselves some kitchen stuff at Giant while visiting the adjacent bank. On the way back, we stopped by and fed this fluffy Madam. She was having her nap in that scorching afternoon. When she opened her eyes, we served her some biscuits and she turned almost 6 times around the biscuits.

" Eat or leave?" I guess she was thinking like this. 

Then she had her high tea.

Icon Cat's lunch box. Ok this ugly coffin-like lunch set  were created by Nicky and with the co-assistance by me. We used to put this outside our work place. What laughing us off was the biscuits always went empty every morning when we went to work, but we never seen a cat eating them during the day time. Until one day, we finally catch the real eater. 

She sneaked into the corridor every 7pm or later to eat the biscuits when the light goes dark. But one day she blamed us for OT. Silently she came to the lunch sets and eat in fear. Chew, Peek, Chew, Peek, like a thief. What a poor thing. OK, we know we delayed your dinner time.

 

 I shoot these while walking under the suria. They are beautiful corners around us. 

It was very fun dealing with strays around. Hilarious indeed but it teaches us alot. Aloot.

We walked every where, with low budget, to release our stress to forget about many things. 

Sometimes, I feel warmth when Nicky says " Are you okay? Or we go feed dogs and cats this evening, Nak?" This is a therapy, indeed. 

I don't know if this help, but up to my strength, I believe as long as we could afford to give one meal, they can eat one meal. The expressions of them running and eating chewing chocking with the biscuits are really priceless. 

Living as students or human means alot, not up to what you imagine. We seek happiness through such way. 

It depends on how you look at.

Join us, would you?