Oh, Sheep!

I finally brought my bicycle to the apartment the other day--it had been staying with my host family in the Oudaya, and generally took up half of their hallway. (I wanted to clear it with the landlord first, figuring that tenant-protection laws here probably aren't what they are in Spain. Of course I can keep my bicycle in the apartment. He seemed surprised that I even asked, but did ask me to lean it against the part of the wall that has tiles, instead of the part taht doesn't have tiles, since the tiles are easy to wipe clean if any dirt gets on them.)

So, today, I finally took my first (sort of) Moroccan bicycle ride (I had ridden over to the Fulbright office before, but that didn't really count.) I went south along the beach road, thinking that I might hit the weekly Sunday souq at Temara. I didn't make it that far, though, because I found the source of the sheep.

The sheep souq is huge, maybe a city block in size, and it's madness: it seems as if the families who sell the sheep and come in from the countryside to do so set up camp, and they have little restaurant setups, and there's a (shoddy) ferris wheel even, and whatnot. Oh, yeah, and there are hundreds of sheep being carted around, and lazing about, and being looked at in the tooth and carried over people's shoulders.

The thing is, I didn't take my camera. I usually take my camera on bike rides, but for some reason today I thought better of it. Sigh.