Moroccan police are anti-donkey

Jonathan and I got up almost two hours before sunrise and saddled up the donkeys. We led them through the desert in a thick haze of fog that we hoped would veil us after the sun rose. We had some vague directions about how to get to the animal market, but first we had to circumvent the police checkpoint. Our route probably set us back thirty minutes, and not long after we were actually walking the streets of town, the rising sun had destroyed most of the fog, and the only thing giving us any anonymity were our turbans and blue robes.
The market turned out to be much further away than we had hoped, and avoiding any main road and peeking around corners for police made it even more difficult. The closer we got, though, the more vehicles and donkey carts we saw carrying sheep toward the market, and we were able to just join the pack.
Any worries about police quickly dissipated as soon as we reached the market. Partly due to excitement, partly due to the overwhelming nature of the whole endeavor that made us realize that we could have other problems. Of course we drew plenty of attention as we pushed our way through the crowded aisles of the food side of the market, but most of it was harmless. When we got to the animal market, we staked out a place on the edge, near where other people had parked their donkey carts. We worried it wasn’t central enough, and one of us would have to walk around the crowd to rustle up some buyers. This was not the case, though. As soon as word spread that some foreigners were selling donkeys, we were surrounded by a dozen people begging to know the price. At first we were thrilled at the interest, but it eventually became obvious that nobody was very interested in paying a realistic price for donkeys to foreigners. Either they were simply curious, or figured we would sell them at rock bottom prices because we didn’t know any better.
It was fun for a while, but as the men started to fade away, the children took over. They were obnoxious as hell, and were continuously harassing the donkeys, asking for cadeauxs, or poking around our belongings in the saddlebags. During the course of the day, my headlamp, which had been in my jacket pocket in the saddlebag, and Rough and Ready’s bridle were missing.
We were hoping to get 1,500 Dirhams ($190) per donkey, but knew that we would probably have to settle for closer to 1,000 Dirhams ($125) per donkey. Interestingly there was far more interest in Rough and Ready, even though for us, Shuwya Shuwya was the far better, and more reliable donkey. By late afternoon, we knew we might have to go even lower if we wanted to get rid of them that day, which was very important due to our police situation. We had heard from somebody that the police was looking for us, but they never came.
The best offer we had was from one man who was interested in buying the cart and both donkeys for 2,500 Dirhams, but he wanted to see the cart first. We arranged to meet him on a road not far from our camp at 6:00. Before we left the market, we also took the phone numbers of a couple of other prospective buyers, in case the other offer fell through.
On our way back to town we passed through a slummy area, and we got the attention of a dozen kids, who started following us. They started with the usual bonjours and monsieurs, and quickly moved to the inevitable requests for cadeauxs. When we started to ignore them, it made them angry, so they tried testing out their only phrases in English, “fuck you!” and “bitch!” I was shocked, but knew that responding to that would not help. Just as we got out of their neighborhood they started hurling rocks at us. At this point, we were too far in front of them for us to worry. Jonathan continued on toward camp, but I had to meet the man who wanted to buy the donkeys on the road next to the slum, so I stayed just out of their rock throwing range. While I waited, the kids slowly crept closer. Some of the kids had slings, but they were not very effective. Just as some of the rocks started to land near me, a young guy walking by saw what was happening, and went and yelled at the kids. He then sent one of the kids to the nearest shop and had him buy some bread with cheese spread and milk. As I chatted with the guy, the kids slowly crept closer in a non-threatening away. When they were finally surrounding us, I pulled out one of the noisemakers from Jonathan’s birthday party and blew on it. This caused a big commotion among the kids, and they all had their hands out, demanding it. I said I would only give it away for one of their slings, because, hey, I need to protect myself, don’t I? Immediately there were about four slings being shoved towards me. I chose the orange one and the deal was done.
Jonathan came back with Said, who we had become friends with over the last few days. We wondered where the guy was, so we had Said call him so he could speak in Arabic. Apparently there had been a mix up in the time, and we had been late. The guy was no longer interested. So, with the help of Said, we called the two other donkey buyers. One wanted Rough and Ready for 750 Dirhams, the other wanted Shuwya Shuwya and the cart for 1,750.
When the first donkey buyer arrived, we made a quick transaction to sell Rough. We said our goodbyes, but it happened too quickly, especially as the idea of sentimentality for your donkeys didn’t seem very common in the culture. We knew the more stressful donkey was gone, but also the more fun one. Rough and Ready was always a constant headache, but also provided far more entertainment. His midnight hee-hawing, his constant chasing of Shuwya Shuwya, and most of all the gumshow, will never be forgotten. The gum show, which could come at any moment, look like this:



It was our weak spot, and Rough and Ready knew it. Any time after we forced him off of Shuwya Shuwya after an attack, and we were cursing and hitting him, he would immediately flash the gum show. Of course this would win us back over immediately.
After Rough was gone, we dealt with the second donkey buyer, and apparently there had been a mix up in the price, and the deal didn’t go through. So we were left to try and figure out how to sell the cart and Shuwya Shuwya the next day. Said stuck around that night with his friend Said, and we made dinner and tea together. They told us that the animal market should continue the next day, although the normal weekly market wouldn’t be there.
In the morning, we decided to head out early again toward the market as we had the day before, but this time we would bring the cart. We felt some confidence with our police situation since we hadn’t been bothered the day before. Unfortunately, though, the market location changed, and it was right next to a police station. After we arrived, of course we were surrounded by kids who went through their normal routine, and by the time they started to throw rocks, a police officer arrived and shooed them away. He spoke to us in English and asked us the expected questions of where we were from and what we were doing. Five minutes after he left, another office arrived, asking the same questions, but in French. He asked for our passports, which we gave. He gave them back and left. Soon after, I went to buy some fresh squeezed orange juice that I had seen someone making. As I started to drink it, another officer approached me with the same routine. After taking my passport, he told me to come with him.
We arrived outside the police station, and I was directed to speak with a man sitting in a white SUV. He was dressed in slacks and a white button up shirt. Again, he asked where I was from, what I was doing in Morocco and at the market, and for my passport. I told him that we were trying to sell our donkeys here and he told me that this was a problem. I didn’t take him seriously. Before explaining the problem, he said we had to leave town. I begged for him to let us sell the donkey and cart before leaving. He said it was impossible, and that we had to go back to Guelmim. So I asked if we could just go on to Tan Tan Plage. He told us it was also impossible, as they don’t have a donkey market. By this time, Jonathan arrived, but refused to admit to speaking or understanding any French, a tactic that can be fairly useful when being faced with ridiculous or illegal police practices. I asked him what we had done wrong, and he said many things. What things? Well, first of all, he told us, trying to sell a donkey at a sheep market, secondly, camping outside of town, plus, many other things, which he refused to elaborate on. They were both ridiculous charges, especially the camping, as we were in a nomadic culture that generally is open to people camping on communal temporarily. The man told us that our two options were to leave to Guelmim (150 km back the way we came) immediately, or to face the charges in court. We really wanted to call their bluff, but we thought we could at least sneak out of town toward Tan Tan Plage, only 30 km away. We told them we weren’t nearly prepared to make a journey that long with only one village in between, and potentially only one well. We had very little food, no water and half the donkey power. We also were not packed at all. They said they would give us one hour to do all our provisioning, water filling and packing.
As we slowly packed up our things at the market, I exchanged phone numbers with a couple of the men that had shown interest in the donkeys. The police yelled at the men as we did this, though I still was going to try to escape this town without a donkey cart setup.
We left the market with a police escort and plenty of people watching, none of which were about to come to our defense. We led the donkeycart away as slowly as possible, and spoke with anybody that was curious about us. A police truck was following us, about 30 yards behind us. Anytime that somebody tried to talk to us, an officer would get out and yell at them, or pull them aside after speaking to us, and give them a talking to. This whole charade of a police escort for a donkey cart was so comical that it really lightened our mood. We mosied through town, greeting everybody we could, wondering if they noticed the police truck behind us. Our only worry was that the police would come all the way to our camp with us, and really make us pack up right then. As we expected, though, they stopped at the edge of town, and the edge of jurisdiction. A police officer at the checkpoint, who apparently hadn’t been updated about what we were supposed to do, told us that we had to go to Tan Tan Plage. I didn’t matter, though. It was now gendarmerie territory, and in a way we were safe.
We called Said and he came quickly. He confirmed what we were almost sure of, that everything the police told us was a bluff, and for whatever reason, the powers that be had decided that we were not welcome in town. He said we shouldn’t worry that they will do anything to us. We still wanted to leave, though, and the sooner the better. We called up two of the potential donkey buyers, one of which was the same guy that had bought Rough and Ready. He said he would come to look at the cart. So instead of packing everything and heading to the next town, we unpacked the cart, and got everything ready to sell.
It wasn’t until almost dark that the man who had bought Rough and Ready finally showed up, though this time he came with a woman. She had her game face on, and was far from friendly. It was her that was interested in Shuwya Shuwya. She walked directly to her and grabbed her mouth, opened in harshly and checked the gums. She looked disappointed. She looked her over a little more and seemed annoyed that she had bothered to walk all the way over to look at such a worthless donkey. Of course we knew this was all a show, but it was true that by the look of her, Shuwya Shuwya was an old mare, past her prime.
They would not take her for anything more than 1000 Dirhams including the cart. It was a steal for the cart alone, and we knew it. But we were desperate, and they knew it. The deal was done and after nearly a month, we were donkey free. We knew it would be a relief to have them out of our hands, as it really was like being with children, especially in town. But empty nest syndrome set in that night, and we got nostalgic from the hee-hawing we could hear in the distance, imagining it was Rough and Ready greeting Shuwya Shuwya as she came home.

Shuwya Shuwya is bought

In the morning we burned our trash, packed our bags fuller than any of us ever had before, and collected the remaining supplies before leaving our Tan Tan camp. During the process, our camp, as it often was by now, was invaded by some of the kids from the nearby neighborhood. They were generally peaceful, but had a real problem of touching and playing with everything they could get their hands on. Jonathan yelled at one of them as he realized he was looking through one of the pockets on his backpack. Jonathan’s headlamp was never seen again. They also tried to steal a memory card of mine. It was another nice goodbye from the town of Tan Tan.
The plan was for Jonathan and I to go to the market and sell all of our leftover supplies, and then leave town for Tan Tan Plage. In the mean time, Susan would be traveling north to Rabat to get visas for the three of us to enter Mauritania. We had all bought them before the donkey trip, but they were expired by now.
So Jonathan and I carried our backpacks, lots of leftover food, four water jugs, a tire, tools and quite a few other random things. We tried to get a taxi to the market, as it was a couple of km away. Unfortunately Tan Tan is the most difficult town to get a taxi in that I have ever been in. We walked and tried to get a taxi for nearly an hour, but with our loads, we were barely moving. Before we could get a taxi, a large truck that served as public transit to Tan Tan Plage drove up to us. We decided we might as well try our luck selling stuff there, as it seemed that we would never make it to the market.
Meanwhile, Susan was trying to make it out of Tan Tan by hitchhiking. We had told her it wasn’t necessary to hitchhike, and that we would split the cost of transportation and accommodation evenly, but she insisted on saving the money. She got picked up by a French man, who said he would take her as far as the checkpoint. When she got there, though, they would not permit her to cross the checkpoint. They said she could not leave Tan Tan by hitchhiking and they forced the French man to take her back to town and drop her near a bus station. We weren’t sure how much of this was just worry for a girl hitchhiking, or had something to do with the trouble we had caused in town.
Jonathan and I got a text about this as we were in the truck, and so we told her just to meet us in Tan Tan Plage. We got there about 30 minutes before sunset, and the town had a unique calmness to it, that was obviously not normal here. It was the night before Eid Al-Adha, one of the most important Muslim holidays, and you could feel it in the air. The few people in the central square of town paid close attention to us as we arrived laden with jerry cans, plenty of luggage, and a tire. We casually laid out a few grain sacks as a mat, and set out all of our items for sale. Somehow a small crowd materialized within minutes. We were not hoping to make much money, just lighten our loads. Surprisingly we didn’t do too bad, and sold most things at half of what we had paid for them or more. The best sale was a toy violin that I had gotten for Jonathan’s birthday. We sold it for 10 Dirhams, when I had bought it for 15 Dirhams. Susan arrived as we were selling the last of our things. In total, we made 118 Dirhams, or about 15 dollars. Not much, but in context of traveling, $5 each was about a day of living cheap.
After it was dark enough, made our way to the beach, and found an area that was out of the way and covered with little bush-covered hills, that gave us a little bit of privacy. It was time to get on to a new style of travel.