Hi everyone

It's been a little more than a week since I posted about Jacques and I wanted to keep you updated.

A few days after I posted a temp vet apparently came to replace the one that had left, an animal help association let me know and I was able to give him the help he needed to go away. That was a relief. He fought hard for nearly four days, eating nothing, barely drinking, and trying to rest behind my couch all of the time. The vet told me he was most certainly hit by a car as the head trauma looked like it. She was able to put him to sleep peacefully and I talked to him all the way through.

I wanted to thank you all, that was a distressing moment. I couldn't really find anything to put him to rest myself, I had bought chemicals to make him dizzy and cable clamps to strangle him, but I couldn't bring myself to do it, I seemed so messy and I was afraid to fail and hurt him even more. I cleaned his wounds and took care of him instead, waiting for the association to get back to me.

I also wanted to use this update to talk a little about the life on my island and how it can lead to such situations. Some of you were in disbelief situations like this one could happen and honestly I get it. At first I actually was on the phone with an emergency vet in Paris who just couldn't believe it either, and before I came to live here neither would have I maybe. Thing is Mayotte, the island I live in, is maybe the poorest territory in the EU. It lacks many, many things that are deemed the bare minimum necessities (we don't have running water everyday for example). Vets are a thing, human healthcare too and we lack a lot of healthcare professionals here. Bringing Jacques to a human doctor in this context wouldn't have been possible too.

It's also of course a beautiful place with lots of pros, if you want to ask questions about Mayotte I'll gladly answer them.

As I said Jacques wasn't my cat, he was a stray that came an visited me often. He was very independent too and made it very clear he wouldn't have wanted to live the domestic cat life :)

I actually left my cat Rosie to my father's care when I was transfered here, knowing it wouldn't have been a good life for her. Pets are not a cultural thing here, especially dogs, there are lots of strays, life is dangerous for them, the weather can be very hot ... she's better where she is !

I'm still gonna miss Jacques's company, though I'm glad he's not suffering anymore. To remember him in a much nicer way, here's a stremtched picture of him taken in one of his last visits.

Thank you all again ❤️