Essaouira, Morocco
Castles in the Wind
January 4, 2013
The clouds are really low
And they overflow
With cotton candy
And battle grounds
Red and brown
- Jimi Hendrix
The wind whips across the horseshoe shaped beach, propelling kitesurfers smoothly along the water and making it impossible to relax on the beach. The old ruins of a former watchtower, the Bordj El Berod, intertwine with the sand and the surf as camels lazily carry tourists the short distance along the beach. Across the bay the walled Medina dominates the otherwise flat landscape. On the land surrounding the Medina the new section of the city sprawls out to the horizon. All around the Medina tourists from all over the world wander down the narrow alleyways and around the walls, snapping photographs, eyeing up souvenirs, and looking for restaurants. This wasn’t anything like the places I had come from.
Along with the tourists came the hassles. Walking through the Medina there were constant calls for attention from the storefronts on either side. The mildly friendly voices trying to start up a conversation never let up. It became tiring after half an hour; the best tactic seemed to be simple silence or waving your hand to indicate no. In addition to the stores there are also vendors with trays of cookies, offering more than just standard cookies but “happy cookies” and “space cakes” too. While there wasn’t much alcohol in town there were a lot of people offering to sell drugs.
But the Medina was more than just the tourists and the hassle and the affluence and the prosperity they brought with them. The lives of the local people were also there, inseparable in their coexistence. They moved through the same narrow alleyways doing their daily shopping, talking with friends, and dodging the same motorbikes. They lingered at the edges watching life pass by. While tourism has changed the stores lining the alleyways it hasn’t changed the alleyways and it hasn’t changed the role the old city plays in everyday life. The old photograph stores have windows with dusty advertisements for genuine Kodak paper even though now it’s all about digital. Like the rest of the Medina, the stores are slow to change, retaining a timeless mix of the old and the new that provides a glimpse of the past and also an indication of what they future will hold.