The Gattara

Gattara
/gatara/

Noun f (plural: gattare) (masculine: gattaro)

1. Person (female) who feeds stray cats.


Whilst I was in Pavia, I was sat in the park on a bench, reading a book. As you do. As I sat down, I saw two cats sat on the wall opposite and didn't think much of it.


Two stray cats sitting on a waaaall.

A few minutes later, I casually looked up again, and there were suddenly 6 cats on the wall.

In the corner of my eye I see an unkempt odd-looking woman clutching a white carrier bag to her chest and walking in my direction from the other side of the park. This woman approaches the now cat-lined wall, looks cautiously from side to side and then climbs over the wall and ducks down behind it. The cats follow suit and disappear from view.

I hear some rustling from behind the wall and although I can't see anything I can tell the woman is tipping out some cat biscuits onto the floor. Five minutes later, the woman discreetly climbs back over the wall, puts an empty mince container into the bin and then scurries away.

When she'd gone, I snuck over to the wall and peered over.

Woah.

There were now over 10 cats behind the wall.

When Giorgio and Dominga finally picked me up, I told Dominga about the cat-feeding woman.
"Ah yes," she said, "She is a gattara. They are women who feed stray cats. They look normally dirty looking, with old or dirty clothes. It's quite odd."

That's amazing. There is actually have a name for these scruffy Italian women who buy a ton of catfood and deliver it to a hoard of patient homeless cats. I mean, don't get me wrong I love cats. But seriously...