Agadir

It has been said that Agadir is a city without a soul. Devastated by an earthquake in 1960, which buried the waning port town along with 18,000 of its unfortunate inhabitants, Agadir was quickly rebuilt in the modern, preplanned grid style for which it is now recognized. Its subsequent lack of chaos and organic growth evident in most other Moroccan cities may be superficial evidence of soullessness, however, a closer look at the city revealed to me depth and personality which discredits Agadir's regrettable nickname, "the LA of Morocco". It is true that Agadir is modern and organized compared to other Moroccan cities, but I found the inhabitants to be equally, if not more welcoming than their Moroccan peers.
We arrived later than we had hoped to the ever-bustling transport hub of the outer suburb of Inezgane. Climbing down from our bus, we traversed pushy ticket salesman yelling out common destinations, food cart workers fanning glowing embers with torn squares of cardboard beneath bright spiced meats , and children wandering between the buses with boxes of Kleenex, gum, travel medicine, fans, and other trinkets for the tourists and departing travelers. Just around the wall of the station, across from an vast souq market, down an alley that smelled of urine, we found the entrance to our towering hotel. At the front desk was a smart and vivacious, well dressed Moroccan. Short, broad shouldered, and with an unusually long gait, he quickly prepared our paperwork and promptly lost us behind him in the cavernous halls as he galloped up the stairs to inspect our room. Soon we were settling in to a pleasant room overlooking the busy street below, with fresh towels and hot showers.
The next morning we woke to the sound of horns and squeaking brakes from the street below. We were visiting Agadir to meet some friends from our old training group back in Azilal, Marge and Jess; and also to pick up and meet Marge's parents, who were flying in from the states the following day. Soon enough we got a call from our friends, who had just arrived from their homes south of Agadir. I rushed down the three flights of stairs to find them already talking with the jovial hotel staff, which had multiplied to three gentlemen. I brought them up to see the view from the room as we finished packing our belongings, and then, after paying at the front desk and bantering in TashlHite about sleeping and dreaming, we bid farewell to the kind men at the hotel and walked back around the wall to the station where we had arrived the night before. In the morning sun, were row after row of hundreds of sky blue grand taxis (Major cities in Morocco, like in America, have "petite" taxis, which transport passengers within the city. All across Morocco, however, there are also "grand" taxis, which are perhaps the most common form of transportation between cities. Each region of Morocco has a different color scheme for its taxis. In the Agadir region, taxis are a smile-invoking, retro, sky blue. In my region of Ouarzazate, the taxis are a similarly retro, but far less smile-invoking, yucca beige. Unlike a petite taxi which will take 1-3 passengers at any time, grand taxis will only leave for their destination once they have at least 6 passengers. Occasionally, this number may grow to as many as 10 passengers. In these cases, passengers may sit between the driver and his door, or even in the trunk!) The friendly blue sea of taxis sparkling in the morning sun was enough to renew my faith in the "grand" taxi experience, which had been severely tested the previous day upon trying to arrive in Agadir.
The previous day: We had, as usual, had no problem getting into the city of Ouarzazate, however, once we arrived there, we found our intended bus already full. Usually this is not an issue because there is always the option to take a grand taxi. We headed to the taxi stand, still confident things would go smoothly, but that was not our destiny. Instead we found a group of scheming "kurtis" (the men that sell taxi seats). First, they insisted that because there were no taxis from the region we were going to, we would have to pay double for the "round trip" price. To this we responded that we would gladly wait for a taxi from the intended region to arrive. When one such taxi did arrive, they preceded to fill it with people who arrived after us in line, so that there was no seats left for us. For nearly a half an hour, with the taxi full and waiting to leave, we stood fervently behind it, arguing with the "kurtis" in TashlHite, and blocking the taxi from leaving. When it was clear that we could not change there mind, we said that if we could not take that taxi, we would surely not give them the pleasure of taking any of their other taxis, and with that we walked to a nearby bus station and bought tickets on the next bus. This gave us some time to relax in Ouarzazate and eat lunch. Oddly enough, as we walked back towards the bus station from lunch, we came across one of the more sleazy "kurtis". Half-joking, I gave him a full and pleasant Moroccan greeting, to which he replied unexpectedly, (in tashlHite) "Please don't take what happened at the taxi stand personally. It's just business. You have to understand that people here in Morocco are not honest and trustworthy like they are where you come from. Forgive us and have a good day." And with that he was off with a wave and a smile. As it turned out, the bus we took ended up being a much nicer and (as always) cheaper option, and it was worth the stress of the argument to have experienced the event, and I suppose, to practice arguing in the "target language".
Back in Agadir: After taking in the view of the taxis, we grabbed some delicious avocado-banana smoothies and pastries to fuel us for the day ahead. From there we headed to a new hotel in downtown Agadir and dropped off our stuff. The hotel was downright fancy, despite a very decent price tag, and was just a short walk from the famous sandy Agadir beach and surrounding boardwalk. As we left the hotel, I got a call from a Moroccan friend, who lives in Agadir, but grew up in our town. He was working not far from the hotel so we made our way down the hill to meet him. As we walked, I was a bit surprised, by the none-Moroccans that I saw. Although, I was expecting to see lots of tourists, we happened to visit during a lull in the tourist season, so what I saw instead, was a surprising number of expats living in the city; fair skinned Americans and Europeans, with cargo shorts and worn t-shirts ambling down side-streets with strollers or pets on leashes. I later discovered that there are whole neighborhoods dedicated to these expats living in Agadir. In fact, our next stop would bring me to Marjon, the epicenter of these foreigners.
As you may know by now, Marjon is a large department/grocery store that exports goods from around the world and therefore provides volunteers and expats with many of those basic things that they used to take for granted while begrudgingly walking up and down the well lit grocery isles of America as just another chore to check off the "to do list". This being our second visit to Marjon since arriving in Morocco, Amber and I were much more controlled with our purchases than last time, and I felt proud to have largely overcome my urge to splurge. At least in my buying habits, I have taken one more step towards assimilating with the Moroccans that I live among. In fact, I spent the majority of my time at Marjon talking with a group of employees who decided I was the coolest thing since white bread because I knew some TashlHite. They even invited me up to the employee lounge for lunch, but I had to take a rain check. This actually proved to be a common theme in Agadir. Everywhere that we went, we were approached as tourists, but after a few words of TashlHite were spoken, we were embraced as friends. Wide grins spread across the faces of salesmen, waitors, and passersby, when they discovered that we were speaking their original language (not, mind you, the languages they speak most of the time, Arabic or sometimes French; but the language that their parents speak with them back in the adobe homes of their childhood). In true Moroccan fashion, many of these startled new friends would invite us to their homes for tea or a meal, and many even gave us their phone number or email address. Even for Morocco, the people of Agadir were over-the-top hospitable and friendly. When we visited the famous, vast markets of souq Lhed, we were given free fruit, dates, or in one instance, a key chain with a painted seashell. At one DVD shop, when they discovered that we spoke TashlHite, they asked if we were interested in the latest TashlHite version of the animated movie "Ratatouille". "Yes of course", was our immediate response. Entertainment and language study in one sweet Pixar package, and all for just 10 dhs!
Eventually we made our way to the beach to watch the sunset. This was my first time seeing the ocean since we flew over it and landed in Africa almost 8 months ago. We walked around barefoot in the fine sand and savored the views of the sun setting over the water. To the right, framing the sunset, was the tall mountain where ruins still stand of the original 16th century kasbah from which Agadir gets its name ("agadir" is the Tashlhite word for wall, but it also refers to a walled fortress). On the steep face of the mountain below the kasbah "God, King, and Country" are written in large Arabic script which lights up each night after the sun set. Under the green glow of the script on the mountain, we wandered around the boardwalk enjoying the cool air of early fall days. After a while, we decided it was time to go to bed, but all the roads back to our hotel were now blocked for what we were about to find was a huge street parade. We joined the crowds gathering on the sidewalks just as the parade began, and watched as float after energetic float pasted us by. In addition to floats representing most of the regions of Morocco, there were also camels, jugglers, stilt-walkers, skate-boarders, free-style bikers, a float depicting the famous food of Morocco (tagine and couscous), and even a float blasting the classics of the late Michael Jackson while Moroccan youth took turns break dancing under a disco ball. When the parade finally passed, we crossed the street and continued to the hotel. Before going to bed however, we decided to get a late-night snack. Most of the cafes and hanuts around the hotel were closed, but after rounding one street corner we observed a bright yellow and white neon sign coupled with the delicious smell of a well used grill. I can't remember the exactly name of the place, but it was something like, "The Brooklyn Diner". Buzzing with activity and smelling better and better the closer we came, this little swarma deli was exactly what we were looking for. In fact, it was beginning to seem like Agadir knew my desires better than I did. My final desire, to get a good nights sleep, was also met by the accommodating city, so it was with bright eyes and rested body that I awoke the next morning to another beautiful day.