RABAT,
January 16 (IslamOnline.net) - With `Eid Al-Adha only four days away,
thousands of unemployed Moroccans are making a good job of the festive
season just to eke out a living.
Seeking
short-lived jobs, their butter and bread are very much linked to the
selling of sheep whose prices spiraled up this year to an average of
$150 and $400.
`Eid
is already proving to be very lucrative for sheep brokers, who buy the
cattle and re-sell them with a 20-40% price increase.
Fodder
and hay also make it financially worthwhile for jobless Moroccans.
At
the break of dawn, thousands of youths pack their horse-drawn
carriages with bundles of fodder and hay for just three or four
dollars a day.
Saudi
Arabia announced Friday, January 14, that `Eid Al-Adha falls on
Thursday, January 20.
Bodyguards
Moroccans
with sinewy and strong bodies are also making good money in the run-up
to `Eid.
With
thieves eyeing the pockets of the customers and sheep shepherds, who
earn thousands of dollars in day-to-day trading, bodyguards become a
must-have.
“I
get in return a fatty, long-haired sheep,” Ali, one such guards,
told IslamOnline.net.
Others
barbeque sheep’s heads for around three dollars each.
Children
have also a fair slice of the cake either by selling ropes to
customers or merchants at an average of 50 cents a piece.
Some
old-aged Moroccans undertake the backbreaking job of carrying the
sheep to the customers’ cars or homes just to make ends meet.
Others
lease their garages to merchants and shepherds to showcase their
sheep.
According
to estimates released by the Arab Labor Organization in 2003,
unemployment rates are running at more than 38% in Morocco.
Companies
are taking advantage of `Eid, granting loans for low-income Moroccans
at huge interest rates to buy sheep.
