On my last night in Morocco, my friend and I had dinner on the rooftop of our Riad, or hotel. We were interrupted by a cat, purring under our table. As two people who favor dogs over cats, we were not impressed. We instantly pulled our feet up to our chairs and spent about fifteen minutes trying to figure out how to get it away from us. Thankfully, a few stomps of our feet and the man delivering us our food did the trick.
In Marrakech, the cats find homes everywhere, whether that be on the seat of a dirt bike, under my dinner table or inside stalls at the Souk (market). They don't need an invite to make themselves comfortable. They will sit, eat and nap where they please.
To enable them to survive, these cats are sometimes left food outside of restaurants and businesses. They will dig through trash cans, or get fed by the toursits and locals. However, after seeing a few cats limping and some with missing eyes, I became convinced that they have their own brawls with other cats or animals in the streets over some thrown out meat. I've found that people in America are wary of stray animals, but in Morocco, the people take them in as their own.
The cats in Morocco are well taken care of. If any harm could be done to the cats, it would be by other cats, animals or through disease. The people in Morocco care about these animals and try to make sure they are protected. The best way we, as tourists, can help these cats are to treat them like the ones sitting on the back of many of our couches.
