While growing up in Ecuador I remember being frightened about many, many things. I was afraid of the dark, I was afraid of the old lady accross the road, I was afraid of the big dog next door, I was afraid of the crickets that congregated in huge piles outside of my house. I was even a little bit afraid of dolls. But what I wasn't afraid of were cats.
Those fluffy, cute balls of fun were not dangerous to me at all. Why should they be? They looked so harmless! So when a neighbour came round with the cutest little white kitten myself, my siblings and cousin squeeled with delight and spent many lovely hours playing with the darling thing.
We saw the kitten a few more times in the weeks following. And towards the end, the little creature took great delight in licking and nipping our hands. Oh how we laughed!
Being children, the fact that we never saw that kitten again meant absolutely nothing to us. In-fact, I don't recall ever thinking about the fluff ball again until I stood behind my mother one day, saw her answer the door and overheard a conversation between her and the guest about a little white kitten that had died of rabies. And 'oh!' we'd all better go to the clinic and get ourselves checked out against the ravenous neural-viral disease that was incurable after a certain time spent in the host body.
My father was visiting us from England for two weeks. We'd not seen him for nearly two years and the last week of his visit was spent frantically running to the clinic every morning, lying on a bed while getting a set of vaccinations around the belly button for seven days running. My father left wondering if he'd ever see us again.
We're all still alive now, which means either we weren't ever infected. Or we were able to counter the disease before the point of no return.
So! A travel tip for all you adventurers out there: When in Ecuador, never ever pet white kittens!
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