It's been a long time since TARC posted from this account--almost a year. Our last update was ten months ago, when I (@rhondak) was preparing to leave the U.S. for an extended period of time. Then came coronavirus and all plans of return evaporated, at least for the foreseeable future. I ended up getting locked inside Moroccan borders when the government stopped all travel into and out of the country, so I bunked down in Azemmour to wait and see what becomes of our world.
I'm still here, and as fate would have it, am just as involved in animal welfare as ever. Azemmour is a beautiful town about an hour south of Casablanca, located directly on the Oum Rabia River and a short walk from the Atlantic ocean. In fact, I have a view of both the river and the sea from the top terrace of my house. The cover photo of this post was taken from there and shows the River Gate at the north end of the medina, the medina wall, and the mouth of the Oum Rabia where the river meets the sea. TARC volunteer and good friend @norrman shared some photos from that general location recently. You can see those photos and his post about Azemmour here.
My journey into international animal welfare began in Sidi Bouzid, a nearby village, when my partner @michelios and I were approached by a street dog named Hinda on our very first day in town. Hinda adopted us as her pet tourists, so we had her vetted and vaccinated as rescuers like me tend to do. Turns out Hinda was pregnant, and on March 20--the day Morocco went into military lockdown because of coronavirus--she gave birth to nine bundles of joy right smack in the center of my bed.
Hinda brought us to a veterinarian from Azemmour, Dr. Abdelbaki Zyrouil, who then introduced me to Anne Heslop, founder of ERHAM, a group doing TNR with Azemmour street cats. One thing led to another and here I am, with TARC resurrected at "Transatlantic Animal Rescue Coalition," and a brand new community full of cats and dogs in need of help.
left to right: Anne Heslop, Abdelbaki Zyrouil, Michel Quievreux
Unlike Appalachia, though, Morocco welcomes the resources that groups like TARC bring. There are problems here, sure. Some of them closely parallel the problems I encountered in Southwest Virginia, like "rooftop" breeders (Morocco's version of backyard breeders,) too few people spaying and neutering pets, and political corruption that results in brutal, unnecessary death of hundreds of stray dogs and cats. So far in Azemmour I have not enountered any authorities shooting or poisoning street animals. But it definitely happens in other parts of Morocco, despite legislation that passed late last year making such actions illegal.
Rabies is problem here also. I see much work to be done in the future campaigning for local and national government to subsidize rabies vaccines for pets and street animals since rabies is a public safety issue and not an animal welfare issue. There have been several recent cases of cat/dog-to-human transmission of rabies in Morocco, so this is an issue that definitely needs to be addressed.
I don't know exactly what will happen when Morocco opens its borders for travel into and out of the country. I may have to leave for a time, but I hope not. Applying for a long stay visa in Morocco is a bit different from applying in many other countries. So we will see what happens. At this point in time I don't want to leave Morocco and would very much like to settle in Azemmour where our network of friends and fellow animal welfare advocates are located. While I'm here, though, TARC will function in the best interest of the animals we encounter. I believe that working together with ERHAM, we will accomplish revolutionary things in this small agricultural village near the sea, and potentially in the nation of Morocco as well.
