View from the back country - sheep, le condillon, and Fred the Donkey Man

When I moved to the village twelve years ago, I had no idea of what village life was about. I was so overwhelmed by the feeling of space and light both inside the house and out, that even mundane tasks like hanging out the washing were coloured by a sense of pleasure unimaginable when doing the same thing in an apartment. The reality of true village life in the Alpes-Maritimes, with its fêtes, marchés and brocantes on the one hand and its exposure of the intensity of everyday life on the other, would come later.
One day a few months after moving here, I had to drive to Monaco for an appointment. I left the house with time to spare and set off down our mountain road. A couple of kilometres later, I got stuck in sheep. Literally. "C’est la transhumance, Madame". The flock, all 1500 of them, plus goats, the fearful patoux, several shepherds and many volunteers were on their way up to the higher summer pasturing, five to six days along the ancient paths. That was the start of understanding l`arrière-pays, just a few kilometres back from the glamour of the Côte d’Azur.

Recently we held the Condillon. An enormous salad of cucumbers, tomatoes, onions, olives and tuna made of ingredients collected house-to-house and served to 200 or so villagers and friends on long tables on the square. A retired baker, Bernard took over the wood fired communal oven. Assisted by Noël, the resident baker, they stocked the temporary shop in the Mairie with piles of just-baked boules and michettes, pichards and creamy sharp lemon tarts. So with fresh bread, salad, a couple of bottles of rouge and lots of water, we settled down to an afternoon of conviviality. Fred the donkey man and a couple of his friends from Paris joined us at our table.
Fred is a good-looking, well-educated Parisian, cultured in the sense of a well-tended vine rather than a hot-house orchid. Brought up in a French bourgeois house-hold, he told me how his grandmother always offered even her youngest grandchildren a good bottle of Châteauneuf-du-Pape on their birthdays, seeing the appreciation of good wine as an integral part of their education.
After a fairly typical upbringing, Fred broke with tradition and started his professional life working with handicapped people making orthopaedic shoes and boots. His feeling for creativity led him into designing shoes, and he was soon in demand with both private clients and the theatre world, where he created shoes for plays, the opera and other shows. As well as travelling extensively - from Portugal to Morocco to China - in search of ideas and high quality leather, Fred divided his time between Paris, Marseille and our village. His friend Jérôme had inherited the family holiday home, a small house on several thousand square metres of Alpes-Maritimes mountain overlooking the sea, the perfect place to relax and recharge. Eventually, about ten years ago, Fred and Jérôme decided to make the village their permanent home on the basis that Fred could just as easily design and create here as elsewhere.
Then, six years ago, Fred was involved in a very serious car accident, which left him in intensive care for a month, with multiple fractures and internal injuries. Months of rehabilitation and therapy followed, time which forced Fred to rethink his life and priorities. Unable to carry on as a shoe designer, he started looking round for inspiration for a new occupation.

As he explained to me, donkeys had always played an important part in village life. Just about every family had one, and they were used to carry produce from the cultivated lands on the mountains and down in the "condamines" by the river back to the village and then down to the markets on the coast. They also played an important part in land clearance - anyone who has read "Winnie the Pooh" knows that donkeys eat pretty much anything including thistles! Fred had always loved horses, but recognised that the mountains here were not really suitable for them. However, perhaps he could reintroduce donkeys to the village.
He did some research and travelled to Cahors where he worked with Martine Lacuche at "L‘Ânerie"　. During his apprenticeship he learned not only about breeding and educating donkeys for agriculture and pleasure, but also how donkeys are eminently suited to working with handicapped people. Armed with this knowledge, he returned to the village where he set up an association "Les Ânes Maritimes". He has three donkeys, Marius, Nautilus and Roméo, who provide a variety of services based on their traditional role in village life. In a return to his roots in orthopaedic shoes, Fred also works with groups of handicapped young people, mainly from the Fondation Bariquand Alphand in Menton. For nature lovers, Fred and his donkeys are also available for treks in the mountains.
For more information on Fred, Marius, Nautilus and Roméo, contact www.anesmaritimes.com.

Hilary Spronken, September 2010