This month I was surprised that the usual amount of dry and wet cat food often ran out before I finished feeding all the temple cats. Luckily I had some backup food just in case I met other new stray cats. But the backup wet food also ran out last week. This never happened to me before, my backup food was always plentiful and could feed ten more cats. So, I had to monitor the cat food during the last two weeks.
I have realised that I had to feed five more (white) kittens near the skinny monk’ s lodging. There were two more tiny (all black) kittens by the stairs of another building. Then another black kitten turned up with adult cats by the riverfront. The black mother cat seemed to have let go of all her kittens. But how could a tiny kitten be separated from the other two siblings. I wondered whether I should bring the black kitten to join his brother and sister at the other corner of the temple.
I was glad that the tablets I gave to the skinny monk helped in curing the white kitten bad eye infection. This made him very happy as it saved him lots of money. The cost of medication and treatment at the animal hospital has become exorbitant and unaffordable for most people with several pets under their care. This skinny monk depended on formal or established school of medicine. I have become very distrustful of western medicine and powerful bigpharma. I would always choose doctors or vets who have compassion, lots of common sense and independent critical thinking.
I had seen enough dogmatic doctors who endangered their patients, including me, by prescribing wrong doses and medications. They were so insecured that they adhered unwittingly to their textbooks and procedures with the result of hastening the demise of their patients. There were two doctors who frankly talked to me about their opinions on the cases of their patients; one was my father. One doctor told me frankly that my father’s conditions were worsen by taking all the chemical medications with adverse side effects. My friend almost went broke as he followed the vet’s recommendations on more treatments on his poor dog. The dog couldn’t last more than a few days because of severe organ failure and tumour. I told my friend to stop all the invasive and painful treatments so the dog could have some peaceful moments with the owner. But my friend left the poor dog with the greedy vet at the hospital as the vet’s experiment and test case of treatments. The poor dog died without being close to the owner, he died all alone in lots of pain. I was quite angry with my friend for putting all the responsibility of his dog on the vet.
Most Thai people would not take any responsibility of their own bodies and illness. They thought the doctors could do magic with expensive western medicines and modern equipments to put sick people back together in one whole piece again. It just baffled me how insecured and lazy these people could be with their own bodies and health. I had some close friends who were medical students, some old friend taught at famous medical schools in London. I knew how medical students were trained in Thailand; though these were bright people but they had become too passive and worshipped their gurus and mantras. My old friend was a very famous surgeon as he was trained to be a very good mechanics within the programmed paradigm. Unfortunately, these people would ridicule alternative medicine and traditional Thai medicine. They haven’t taken the red pills yet. So, I tried to offer the skinny monk some homely medicine for the kittens with bad flu so that he could save some money and become less dependent on the vet.
I have been giving medicine to cats with running noses and watery eyes during this whole year with very good results. These cats became stronger without the adverse effects of chemical medication on their immune systems. I also treated my orange cats with alternative medicine. Fortunately we could still find these at cheap prices in the country. I myself have been experimenting with traditional Thai herbal medicine with amazing results. I tested these on my gardener; slowly she has become suspicious of western medicine with too much chemicals and negative side effects.
Recently I found that my prayers had been answered. I prayed that there would be some kind people coming to feed temple cats while I was away. At least two ladies have been feeding stray cats around the riverfront. These cats weren’t looked after by the skinny monk as they were too far away from his building. I was so grateful and relieved to know that these cats wouldn’t be hungry. These four cats and a black kitten have become very smart as they could recognise my voice. They would come out of their hiding places to greet me and crying for some wet food. Watching them eating made me very satisfying and cheerful.
So, I need to prepare more backup cat food to put in my car and I would need a bigger bag of cat food for feeding extra kittens and pregnant cats! More kittens could be expected in three months’ time. I might have to ask old friends to donate some changes for buying cat food. The price has gone up almost 20% this month! We might all have to be on a compulsory diet one day as inflation hits the pricing of all products like crazy. Some small milk producers have folded this week leading to serious disruption to the supply chain. We couldn’t find any locally supply of milk in any supermarkets. The troubles have started to brew in Thailand, coffee shops would be in trouble without fresh milk supply. Cake shops will also be affected, no milk meaning no butter and buttermilk. I will have to use soy milk; hoping that it won’t run out too. Yup! I might have to learn about fishing and hunting in the future.
Wishing you peace, good health and prosperity.
Stay strong and cheerful.
