the boy

while hiking in the atlas mountains with a berber guide i came upon a young lady in a berber hut with a donkey. after an exchange of pleasantries we were invited into the home for mint tea. while drinking the tea the girl told us a story of a boy who once loved a girl very much. he visited her often and brought her gifts and wanted to marry her. but her wicked mother thought the boy was not good enough to marry the girl that he loved. after awhile the mother wanted to be rid of the boy because she knew her daughter loved him and wanted to marry him. this wicked mother knew much about herbs and plants so she prepared a mix of foul smelling powder and one day as the boy was leaving from a visit to the daughter she threw the powder in his face and made a chant and he turned into a donkey. the boy was very upset because he knew from the chant that he could only become a boy again if he agreed to never marry the girl. so the boy went back to his family to work as a donkey because he could never make this promise.

we finished our tea, gave the girl a few coins and said goodbye to the girl and walked away as the donkey said ¨besslama¨