It’s no secret that I am obsessed with cats. It’s one of the first things people learn about me when they meet me. This self-identification happens in any number of ways: a chance feline meeting on the street, an incoming text message containing a picture of something weird my mom’s cats did, or even just a glance at my Instagram posts.

Every time I travel away from the cats at home (shouts out to Schmidt, Winston, Fargo, and Dash) or my homeboys in Eugene (hey-o Juno, Gilbert, and Thatcher), I realize how important cats are to me, and to the approximately 36,117,000 other households in the US with at least one feline friend. During said travels, I have observed how some cultures and communities seem to value and adore cats, while others treat them like unwanted vermin.

Since arriving in Ghana, my experiences with local cats have been as different as the patterns of their fur. Finding it hard to tell the visible difference between domesticated and feral cats—and without even knowing whether cats have been extensively domesticated in Ghana at all—I began to ask Ghanaians their take on the matter.

My first respondent was an UBER driver from the Volta Region. I first asked him his general opinion of cats, to which he responded, “There are a lot.” After further probing, he revealed to me that he has never kept a cat as a pet, but that he sometimes feeds a few cats behind his mother’s house. His general sentiment seemed to be that while he felt bad for the emaciated cats in his neighborhood, the species as a whole didn’t make this man’s heart sing.

 

The next day, while walking back from Anani Memorial International School in Nima, I engaged in a conversation with one of the teachers from the school. After watching him stare at a tiny orange kitten atop a pile of plastic bags and bottles, I asked him if he was a fan of cats. As it turns out, he owns six cats. Just as is typical to American domestic cat ownership, he has named each cat and they all eat and sleep in his house with him. His suspicion is that he has a much more friendly relationship with cats than most Ghanaians do, sharing that “many think they are just trying to steal food. And they are. We all have to eat.” Upon parting, the teacher from Anani promised to name his next cat Amma, after my Ghanaian day name.

One day while at work, a coworker saw me open an email from my mom, which contained a picture of one of her cats sleeping on top of his brother’s head. The coworker giggled, then shared that he, too, has a pet cat. When I asked him why it seems like some Ghanaians don’t like cats at all, he responded by saying that he thinks more people like them than dislike them. I asked him if it was common for people to own domesticated cats and he seemed to think it was very common. Now, the same coworker occasionally sends me cat-related content on WhatsApp.

So far, my research has proven relatively inconclusive. While some Ghanaians don’t own and adore cats in the same way that I do, it seems as if most tolerate them with the sort of vague appreciation you might have for a stranger stuck in the same line at the DMV as you; their struggle is familiar and you respect the hustle, but you’re still in competition for limited resources.

I plan to continue recording my feline interactions throughout the trip, maybe through a more historical context of Ghanaian pet domestication practices.

Stay tuned for more!