I woke at 0730, stepped quietly over five other sleeping workawayers, and made my morning coffee. I sat against the outside wall in a bit of shade to drink, enjoying the small amount of solitude and cool air I’d have for the day.
The first odd thing I noticed was a donkey wandering around the garden. Said owned a donkey, Hannaffi, but this was not Hannaffi. I drank my coffee and watched Said’s dad and the neighbor corner the donkey and throw a harness over it.
The second odd thing I noticed was Said himself. He´d just come off Ramadan and hadn’t adjusted to a normal sleep schedule, so I’d never seen him awake before 1000. He walked up and started sorting through a pile of poles I was sitting next to. “Good morning mon, how are you, you sleep all right?”
“Uh, yeah. Yeah I slept good, thanks Said. Are you all right?”
“Oh, yes, yes… a donkey fell in the shithole, so now we have to get him out.”
“Oh, a donkey — what?!”
I walked around to the side of the house where the 6’x6’ by 8’ deep pit that the toilet empties in to was no longer covered by palm fronds. Sure enough, there was a donkey in it.
We’re in Beni Hayoune, 7km outside of Tagounite, Zagora province, Morocco. There is no “donkey in a shithole removal specialists” you can call. Said owns a 50cc motorbike and a donkey. Donkeys weigh something like 500 pounds. The neighbor took one look at the donkey in the shithole, said “call a tow truck, otherwise its impossible”, and went off to work.
Said doesn’t have the resources to pay for a tow truck. He is, however, maybe one of the most resourceful and optimistic people I’ve ever met. When his dad banged on his door at 0600 yelling “there’s a donkey dying in your shithole”, Said sat up, smoked a cigarette to kickstart his sleep deprived brain, and got to work.
It took eight people, two poles used as levers, and two donkeys (one of which was a stray that we captured and yolked to Said’s donkey using another random stick) to drag the poor beast out of the hole, but we got it done.
Said was born in the desert, to an Amazigh-Tuareg nomadic family. Between the drought and the border conflict with Algeria, the nomad families are getting squeezed into towns and villages. Said is rebuilding his family’s ancient mud brick house, with dreams of making a space local women weavers can use to come together and practice traditional arts, among other things. This documentary tells some of his story:
He and his Dutch girlfriend Linde host workawayers to help with the project. We made mud bricks, collected rocks for a bridge over the canal, helped cook loads of Tagine, and went for walks amongst the palms.
Photo: Linde
Photo: Linde
This place isn’t much of a tourist destination, unless you’re paying for a Sahara desert trip (which, I’m told, are incredible). It’s a ten hour bus ride from Marrakech, over the Atlas mountains, that half the passengers spent vomiting into plastics bags.
The views from the bus are incredible though.
In the Draa Valley
There are wild dogs here, made aggressive due to the drought and lack of food. A few years ago they attacked, killed, and ate a child walking to school. Said’s uncle died of infection from a wild dog bite only a few years ago. Summer temperatures get up into the mid 50s Celsius, 130’s Fahrenheit.
The border with Algeria is a few kilometers away, and the government keeps a sharp eye on foreigners in the region. Since Said isn’t running a hotel with insurance, he’s directly responsible for all the workawayers and is expected to escort us if we leave the residence. If the soldiers or police found us wandering around town on our own, Said would be in trouble.
Daytime temperatures (in early May) were in the high 30’s Celsius, 100 Fahrenheit. There is no AC, so between 11a and 5p we didn’t do any work. There is no wifi, and I don’t have a Moroccan SIM card, so I was 12 days without any connection to the outside world. I got a lot of thinking, writing, and reading done.
Pretty sure I put on five pounds here. Photo: Linde
Photo: Linde
Short walks with Said’s dog, Soozuu (sp?) at sunset are the only times I left the place for two weeks.