It is pretty difficult to find somewhere to park in the Salobreña town-hall square, but at the end of last month, it was made even more difficult thanks to the presence of 200 goats… Yes, goats, plus the goat herder, of course.
Santiago Alonso, who is a local goat herder, was driven by desperation to literally set up camp right in front of the town hall’s front door. Santiago had been fined 10,000 euros for building an illegal construction to house his goats, but there was no way that he could come up with the money, so his bank embargoed his flat. This 28-year-old father of two didn’t know where to turn, so he turned up in front of the town hall with 199 goats; he had set off with 200, but a car ran over and killed one on the way there.
The illegal building was a 60-sq/m shelter for his flock, thrown up precariously with building blocks and sheets of corrugated roofing.
In 2005 the Town Hall fined him 2,000 euros for this building infraction, but as he couldn’t pay it, the sum has been growing and growing to the present figure of 10,000 euros.
With his only income being the sale of goat’s milk and with prices at only 30, cents a litre, he doesn’t have much hope of finding the money. So, he decided to set up camp in front of the very people that are demanding the money. Whilst the goats ate just about every leaf of ornamental vegetation in the square, the Mayor sat wringing his hands. “I can’t change the law, nor turn a blind eye – I’m only a Mayor,” he explained, adding, “If I lift the fine, it is me who will be before the judge.” The Mayor knows Santiago personally and confesses to finding him a likeable fellow, but he says he is powerless in this matter. He said that he recognises that the very neighbours that denounced the building to the Town Hall could be living in equally illegal houses in the vega themselves.