Thursday, 16th of September, 2010, 16:00.
Our flight in yesterday was more or less fine, but the landing in Marrakech v. heavy and the hop to Agadir rocky. The queue at immigration was stubby, the visitors formed a square behind 5 or 7 open booths. All names were recorded by hand. This was the first clue to this place.
After we got through, Mohammed, the representative of the people whose flat we are in, was waiting for us. He’s done this many times before. [Picking people up in a friendly manner; the tourist equivalent of Burger King’s ‘you got it’!] We had a moment of comedy when he couldn’t find the car. The main roads are shared by cyclists and pedestrians. The cars are old, those square Mercedes are v. popular and for some reason many are painted electric blue. Old Ford Transits, the old bubble one from the 70s and 80s are everywhere, as are old Renault 5s. The vehicles look scrumpled, the panel beaters must be busy. This is a second clue.
This place reminds me of how Hull used to be. Things had a price and were therefore reused, interim solutions where cobbled together, ‘make do and mend’ wasn’t an attitude but a way of life, the idea of an alternative alien.
There are no [few] footpaths here, kids dash on the streets, animals – goats, dogs, cats – roam free. There is great variance in properties, some looking more hammered but all a similar shape. An earthquake [1960] flattened Agadir once, it’s inconceivable to me that the buildings here would withstand another one.
The dogs and cats are bleached by the sun. As are the hills, the signs, the streets and the clouds and ozone. The streets have that hot smell, like Bangkok and, I suppose, India. It’s not as strong as Bangkok, but its sickly sweet aroma is there joining in with the dust and bleaching process to glaze you and make you think that you can never be as clean here as in a colder country.
Speaking of which, those tics of the west rise up in you. You can’t help but look [in amazement] at, for example, driftwood used to hold a building up while the workmen complete their task. This morning a man placed two pieces of wood on top of a barrel and put his ladders on top of them. [As he climbed up] I half braced myself to catch him. Moments earlier a man hobbled by.
Our apartment is 20 or 30 metres away from the sea, on a rise that keeps going up a hill another 50 metres away. Detritus dusts every surface. Mainly plastic containers, water bottles and fast food wrappings. It’s everywhere.
In a way, I am jealous. The money we have in the west removed all variance from our environment. Things are predictable, reliable, rational. When there’s money to be earned, you can’t help but go after it. Here, I don’t think there is much, so the people seem not to worry, instead they hang about and chat and drink cola out of glass bottles. And, because resources are limited there must be more gratitude, more joy, not to mention less waste. As I get older, my priorities are shifting, I wish I could stay here for a year, meditate on it.
21:40
Can you flinch with your foot? If so, upon feeling something wet with my big toe in the street a moment ago, that’s what I did. Feeling silly for being so squeamish, I looked back to see if my flip-flopped-foot had stood in a little puddle. It was a [slimy, looking right at me] fish’s head, no doubt dragged into the middle of the road by a scrounging cat. I know this seems silly, and I always say it, but I think holidays help you appreciate stuff; a shower in this place and a fresh cotton t-shirt are more satisfying than back home.
The young surfers at the resty-rant tonight seemed self-important. This is a character trait of many back-packers types. The promise of everything and [personal] insecurity blend with Maslov’s ‘unconscious incompetence’ to create this annoyance. That and all the confidence all the fucking must bring. Not sure what’s the ugliest: falsely high or falsely low confidence. At least the latter is honest. The former maybe brave.
