Not long to go ...
Not long to go ...
The Moroccan, Massaoud Sbai el Idrissi, has been conferred with the V "Guiri" of the Year award for 2008. This award is conferred each year by The Kukuxumusu firm in recognition of a special passion felt for the Sanfermin fiestas by someone from abroad. Next Monday, June 16th, the presentation of the award will take place in Casablanca.
Founder member and creative director of Kukuxumusu, Mikel Urmeneta will be in Morocco to hand over the award. The event will take place in Al Munya Restaurant and the event will be attended by a representative group from the Pamplona firm as well as a small group of friends and colleagues of the winner of the award.
Massaoud Sbai el Idrissi, a 40 year-old man from Beni Meskine, in the province of Settat, has been coming to Sanfermin fiestas every year since 1994 where he sells typical fiestas articles as a street vendor. Kukuxumusu has given him the award because "it wants to acknowledge those foreigners who work during the Sanfermin fiestas and yet manage to enjoy themselves at the same time."
The winner is a married man with five children. He first came to Pamplona 14 years ago as a street vendor. Since then he has never failed to make his annual appearance at the fiestas, although always with the need to work during these fiesta days. He has always sold the typical gadgets and paraphernalia associated with the fiestas; the plastic serpent, the megaphone, balloons, necklaces and caps, while his specialty has always been the perennial straw hat.
This street vendor never loses his smile as he covers his beat around the Plaza de Castillo square, the area of the bullring and as even as far as Calle Olite Street. He has become an easily-recognized figure during fiestas as he shoulders his daily batch of fifty-odd straw hats and some two hundred necklaces along the streets in a seemingly effortless way. In addition to the Sanfermin fiestas, he also finds himself at many other bull fairs such as Dax, Bayonne, Hondarribia or Seville.
In 2007 he sold necklaces, megaphones and red straw hats but this year he does not yet know what article could be "in fashion" this year. "There are always certain things that people ask you for and you have to have the article. It is important to have the right items on hand. What never seems to go out of fashion are the straw hats. I have been selling them every year since the first time I came to Pamplona," says Massaoud.
This "Guiri" of the Year award was first created by Kukuxumusu in 2004, although the firm has been organizing an annual fiesta for foreigners who come to the fiestas for the past twelve years, called "Guiri" Day. The only purpose has always been to pay homage to the foreigners who help make the fiestas what they are. This year, "Guiri Day" will be celebrated on the 10th of July. On that day there will be a meal organized for this year's winner which will be attended by previous years' winners and a representative group of habitual Moroccans to the fiestas will also be invited to attend.
