By Susanna Patari | Project manager, Grumpy Old Cat Lady
Greetings and purrs from Gili Trawangan, Indonesia! We’ve had a rough start for this year, with the worst rainy season for decades. It’s been raining almost daily since the end of November, and not just rain, we’ve had some crazy storms and strong winds to keep things interesting. And it is still raining almost daily, but now we start to have some sunny days too. Hopefully we’re heading towards less wet times now!
Bad weather has meant less tourists, which results in less visitors in our shop, which means less money coming in, which means more stress and anxiety about how to keep going. But it is what it is, and on the positive side, quiet times have given us a chance to breathe a little, and spend more time cuddling our kitties!
Rain or shine, tourists or not, we’ve been busy with cats and kittens, as usual. And we’ve made some changes in our Meowquarters. Read on, and we will tell you everything!
Heartbreak kittens
Rainy season is always rough on cats, and especially for kittens. Viruses and bacteria go wild, the rainy conditions making it difficult for tiny babies to survive. And this year has been no exception. We’ve received several kittens in bad condition, we’ve received mamacats with newborns, we’ve had older cats with severe health issues… and we have had more funerals than we want to count.
We had tiny kittens brought to us from Lombok, we had a badly injured kitten left in front of our shop. We had one of our older kittens Miz Houdini at shop just die on her sleep one night, and soon after her brother got sick with neural FIP and lost his battle in just few days, even with treatment. Most of the newborn kittens also died, one after another, within just days.
We are strictly a no-kill shelter. If there is any hope, we always try our best to help. We want to give everyone a chance to receive their miracle. Every cat brought to us gets their chance to survive, no matter if anyone is paying or not. Sometimes we get the miracle, sometimes we don’t, but the ones who make it keep us trying.
But this is how it is in animal welfare work: you cannot save them all and you get to deal with loss and heartbreak a lot. Sometimes it gets to a point where it starts to eat your spirit and you just want to quit and run away. In those days, you just have to remind yourself of the ones you have saved. The ones you gave a chance and who made it. And it’s those cats that help you crawl out of the darkness.
Something new: kitties opened a little FLEA MARKET
We have a nice covered space in front of our shop that we made for our cat cafe. Unfortunately, as much as people loved the cat café, we had to close it, due to the simple fact that we have no staff and it is too much for one person to do it, on top of everything else. It just became a massive cause of anxiety and stress. Even while it was closed, just thinking about it made our Grumpy Old Cat Lady lose sleep and have café-destructive thoughts. Dynamite came to mind quite often!
But it makes no sense to have the cute little café space just sit there empty, collecting dust and termites. We’ve been trying to figure out how to use the space in a way it’s productive, adding a bit of value to our Meowquarters, but doing it without adding a huge amount of work to our already busy days.
So what to do with it?
Well, we’re very pro-recycling etc anyway, so we decided to open a little charity FLEA MARKET! Mostly for selling pre-loved clothes, but also other stuff, such as household and kitchen items, stuff for travelers, etc. There is definitely space for that, plus we can still have one corner for seating, where people can sit and hang out with our cats, play cards or board games and get a cup of coffee or tea (self service only). The idea was to turn the café to a cool hang-out-space, with cats, coffee, tea, games, and that cool little flea market.
And that’s what we did. We spent less than 50.000rp (about 3USD, less than 5AUD, less than 3euros) for everything, and that was to buy hangers for the clothes. Everything else that we needed, our GrumpyOldCatLady built herself from materials rescued from rubbish piles at nearby building sites. Clothes we are selling have been donated to us or to our mama-foundation Gili Eco Trust, so we already had lot of stuff to put up for sale, and therefore we were able to get all up and running very fast. We opened right on time for the Nyepi weekend (at the end of March), which is one of the busiest times of the year.
Let’s see how this goes!
PLANS FOR THE NEXT FEW MONTHS:
Free spay/neuter clinic
We’re in desperate need of a spay/neuter clinic, but because of the rainy season, we haven’t been able to bring our vet Rini for a visit yet. We do not want to organize a clinic when it’s raining a lot, since nothing heals in humid and wet conditions, and all bacteria and viruses go wild in rainy season anyway. Now that it seems there’s less rain and some sunny days again, we can start planning a clinic, finally. Hopefully we can bring vet Rini here for a few days at the end of April.
Our clinics are always free of charge for everyone who brings their cats to get spayed or neutered.
Holiday in July
Our Grumpy Old Cat Lady needs days off and some rest, so she will go on a holiday in July. This means our charity shop, and everything else, will be closed for the whole month. This is of course unfortunate, since we will make no money when we’re closed, but we really need to take care of human welfare too. Everyone deserves a break, right?
IF YOU READ THIS FAR: THANK YOU FOR SUPPORTING US.
The support and donations from all you cat loving people means the world to, so from the bottom of our heart: THANK YOU! We could not do what we do without your help.
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By Susanna Patari | Project manager, Grumpy Old Cat Lady
By Susanna Patari | Project manager, Grumpy Old Cat Lady
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