At her job, Maria Torero of Lima, Peru cares for sick human beings. At home, she lavishes love on slowly dying cats — 175 of them at last count.
The 45-year-old nurse has turned her two-story, eight-room apartment into a hospice for cats with feline leukemia, scattering it with scores of feeding dishes and at least two dozen litter boxes.
Some have suggested she shelter healthy cats instead. “That’s not my role,” she told The Associated Press. “I’m a nurse. My duty is to the cats that nobody cares about.”
photo: afp
She said that “people don’t adopt adult cats, especially if they are terminally ill.”
For five years, Torero has ministered to animals as they slowly succumb to the common, fatal retrovirus, which is not contagious to humans or other species. It usually is transmitted through direct contact, mutual grooming and the sharing of litter boxes, food and water bowls, according to the website of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
She finds the cats in Lima’s streets and markets and has them tested for leukemia. Nearly all of the street cats turn out to have the disease, as well as fleas, parasites and malnutrition. She takes in only adult cats to avoid spreading the disease to new generations.
“Bringing a kitten here is condemning it to death,” she said.
Torero names the cats — Fellini, Peppa, Dolly, Misterio among them — and dresses many in small shirts. “Each one has a distinct personality,” she said.
She said she doses out medicine, sterilizes the animals and treats them for parasites every two months. Her arms bear the scratches of cats that resist the injections.
She estimated she spends about US$1,785 (NT$ 53,514) a month to care for the cats, half of that from donations and the other half from her job as a private nurse.
Her three children, ages 16, 14, and 6, share the apartment and often play or cuddle with the cats, many of which sleep in plastic organizer bins and sprawl across seemingly every chair and shelf.
The cat boxes and heavy use of deodorants don’t quite mask the powerful odor of urine, but Torero said her neighbors haven’t complained.
Cats with leukemia can survive for several years, though their lifespan is usually much shorter than that of an unaffected cat. They eventually die naturally; Torero hasn’t the resources to have them put down. There are no special ceremonies.
“My best gift of love and respect I give them in life,” she said.
In late October of 1873 the government of Japan decided against sending a military expedition to Korea to force that nation to open trade relations. Across the government supporters of the expedition resigned immediately. The spectacle of revolt by disaffected samurai began to loom over Japanese politics. In January of 1874 disaffected samurai attacked a senior minister in Tokyo. A month later, a group of pro-Korea expedition and anti-foreign elements from Saga prefecture in Kyushu revolted, driven in part by high food prices stemming from poor harvests. Their leader, according to Edward Drea’s classic Japan’s Imperial Army, was a samurai
Located down a sideroad in old Wanhua District (萬華區), Waley Art (水谷藝術) has an established reputation for curating some of the more provocative indie art exhibitions in Taipei. And this month is no exception. Beyond the innocuous facade of a shophouse, the full three stories of the gallery space (including the basement) have been taken over by photographs, installation videos and abstract images courtesy of two creatives who hail from the opposite ends of the earth, Taiwan’s Hsu Yi-ting (許懿婷) and Germany’s Benjamin Janzen. “In 2019, I had an art residency in Europe,” Hsu says. “I met Benjamin in the lobby
April 22 to April 28 The true identity of the mastermind behind the Demon Gang (魔鬼黨) was undoubtedly on the minds of countless schoolchildren in late 1958. In the days leading up to the big reveal, more than 10,000 guesses were sent to Ta Hwa Publishing Co (大華文化社) for a chance to win prizes. The smash success of the comic series Great Battle Against the Demon Gang (大戰魔鬼黨) came as a surprise to author Yeh Hung-chia (葉宏甲), who had long given up on his dream after being jailed for 10 months in 1947 over political cartoons. Protagonist
Peter Brighton was amazed when he found the giant jackfruit. He had been watching it grow on his farm in far north Queensland, and when it came time to pick it from the tree, it was so heavy it needed two people to do the job. “I was surprised when we cut it off and felt how heavy it was,” he says. “I grabbed it and my wife cut it — couldn’t do it by myself, it took two of us.” Weighing in at 45 kilograms, it is the heaviest jackfruit that Brighton has ever grown on his tropical fruit farm, located