Sale day along the road to Morocco

Press, 17 March 1987, Page 38

Sale day along the road to Morocco

It bears a passing resemblance to a New Zealand back-country stock sale: farmers assessing the attributes of the livestock, poking flanks, studying the staple of the wool, chatting together quietly over the merits of the season ... But this is the weekly camel sale at Goulimine, “the door of the desert,” a sandy, dusty, brownbare town on the edge of the Sahara in southern Morocco. Any other similarities with New Zealand are few indeed. Clusters of camels fidget their huge cleft feet around the edge of the stonewalled market yard. Before them are paraded placid little posses of coarsewoolled sheep and dirty brown goats, hobbled by their front legs or with necks tied loosely together with synthetic blue twine.

Beside each group of a dozen or so of the smaller animals squat and stand their owners, some in flowing hooded cloaks, others in grubby once-white robes with heavy belts and jewelled, curved knives at their waists. Prospective buyers stroll through the throng, greeting one another and the sellers with the traditional Islamic handshake and touch to the heart.

A frisky young bull, white and with heavy dewlap flapping, is a comical sight as he tries to mount a protesting heifer. With his front legs tied together, he can only hop along like a begging bunny rabbit, scattering bleating goats and kids in his frustration. Little notice is taken by the Berber tribesmen, whose life in this harsh country is as close to nature as any in the world. No auctioneer shouts the odds or drums up custom. Buying and selling seems to be a matter of amicable agreement between the various parties, some of whom can be seen at intervals leading off knots of animals to waiting utility trucks or simply driving them off across the dusty plain. The camels, at least 40 at this

ROBIN CHARTERIS

London staff correspondent of "The Press" \ ,