If you’ve traveled around to any type of developing country you’ve no doubt noticed the abundance of donkey’s and the incredible amount of work that they do. They are used to transport everything from hay to lumber to carpets and they work in the most intense heat on Earth in places like Africa and Latin America all the while being whipped by some generally young boy who may be sitting on it while it’s hauling or walking next to it. Sometimes these loads can be towering over them and you can’t even see the donkey. These poor donkey’s never complain and never get a break, from birth they are simply put to work. They are the workhorses of the developing world and their sole role in life is to work their “ass” (play on words) off.

Donkey’s of course are insanely strong for having such a little body and a massive head. They are eternally the symbol of being stupid or an idiot and most people refer to them as asses, mules or even just donk’s (at least in the poker world). They make these god awful calls or shrieks when they are in heat and wake up the entire village or street or wherever they are and just get yelled at or whipped. Nobody pays any attention to them though and they just stand there idly in the baking sun or eating burnt grass or whatever they can get their mouths on when they aren’t being worked to death.

I of course am not totally innocent and have contributed to the abuse of donkey’s having ridden them in several countries and thinking it was fun to ride an ass up a hill. In fact, I was inspired to write this post because I was asked yesterday if you can ride donkey’s in Greece. In fact you can and I look forward to doing it again this summer.

In the developing world, camels, horses, cows and donkeys are used for transporting but it seems to me that donkey’s are the only ones that are utterly abused and beaten and ridden until they literally die. In Timbuktu a few weeks ago I saw several dead donkey’s just lying in the sand. Even in death, nobody pays attention to these godforesaken animals. Nobody except for the vultures who eat their carcasses. Oh the life and death of the donkey. Birth-Work-Eat-Work-Get Whipped-Work-Die.

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