By Patrick Wanjohi
Very many cats in one place. That is the easiest way to describe Rachael Kabue’s cat sanctuary.
“We have 635 cats,” Kabue explains to TRT Afrika as she cuddles a cat that jumps on her arms.
“The number of cats has reduced a bit because we have been giving out some for adoption,” she adds.
In 2013, Rachel Kabue, 51, who is also commonly referred to as the Kenyan "cat woman", began her charity work of picking cats from the streets and welcoming them into her home.
She started by taking in one cat but before she knew it, she was taking in more daily.
She has been collecting cats mainly from the streets, but some have been left at the doorsteps of her home in Kenya's capital, Nairobi.
The mother of five now runs the Nairobi Feline Sanctuary in the Utawala area, which is nearly 20 kilometres from the city center.
The majority of the cats are housed in the white-painted wooden enclosure she built on her front yard. The rest are kept in what she calls the clinic area within the main house.
Rachel and her family lived in this house before she moved out to create space for a passion that has grown into community work.
As one of her staff members cleans inside the cat house, we can hear and see a lot of cat activity. The meows, purrs, hisses, and growls characterize the life in the mesh enclosure. Others are asleep, while others are utterly unfazed by our presence.
Everyday is a busy cat day
The cats are fed twice a day and their favourite meal is chicken. Every week they consume 12 kilogrammes, she says.
“They like chicken so much, on the days they have eaten chicken we try to give them a treat during lunchtime because they always feel like they have not eaten,” Rachel explains.
Rachel is extremely busy. She receives calls from various people interested in adopting cats every few minutes while others are calling to offer her some of their kittens.
Every 14 days after being rescued, Rachel names each cat with a name that matches their situation or behaviour.
Notable names include Konde, Swahili for slender and Chai, Swahili for tea. She says she has a special bond with each cat she names.
She displays to me the scars left by the numerous scratches she's gotten while tending to the cats.
The scratches, she says, don’t bother her because the cats use their scratches as a means of letting you know when they are not comfortable or as an accident.
Rachel acknowledges that feeding them and providing for their medical care is expensive, and she mainly depends on her personal savings and well-wishers to cover the costs.
Breeding is also extremely difficult in a population this size, and since cats typically produce three to six kittens per litter, the enormous numbers may soon be more difficult to care for.
The sanctuary spays the female cats and neuters the male cats with the assistance of veterinarians to control the population.
“We do get some cats that come in pregnant, and as a no-kill-shelter we let them give birth, nurse their kittens for eight weeks and then we spay them,” Rachel explains as she removes the claws of a cat that have stuck on her sweater.
They will keep coming
She says her family, the children especially, have been supportive of her initiative and even assist her to rescue some cats. Her neighbours have also supported her efforts by referring adopters and pet surrenders to her.
While the cats are all over us, purring, chattering, growling, and letting us pet them as we sit inside the enclosure, Rachel tells me that even though she moved out and gave the cats full occupation of her home, space is still a problem, because the number is increasing.
“We recently acquired some land along the shores of Lake Victoria (354 kilometres from Nairobi) and we have started constructing a new shelter there,” she tells TRT Afrika
"It is on a bigger piece of land, it is not going to be a cat shelter only, we are going to rescue other animals as well.”
“Now that people are fast appreciating this initiative, I know they will keep coming, more cats will keep coming and I am happy to keep receiving more and giving them the care they deserve,” Kabue explains.
As she leads me out of the sanctuary's grounds, she explains that it is important for more awareness to be created that cats are sensitive to love and other emotions, and that people must always report any distressed animals to nearby sanctuaries.
At her gate we are greeted by a young woman carrying a kitten that is only a few days old. She has brought it to Racheal who gladly receives it and says she already has a name for it.
