A year later, I visited Taghazout, with Aquatech water housing and a female Belgian surfer to photograph. When I walked into the cozy cafe by the sea, they still remembered my name. And I will never forget thinking that after four years in Brussels at my local coffee shop, no one had ever even asked my name or struck up a conversation.

I was charmed once again by this little Moroccan spot.

On the eve of my 49th birthday I felt uninspired and almost desperate to not be turning that frightening age. I thought, oh my god, I am still stuck in Brussels! I had sworn for the past three years that I wouldn’t be there. I refused to let age be a factor in pursuing my dreams and passions, but the thought of turning this age and still being stuck frightened me deeply.

So that night spontaneously decided to stay up all night and redesign my website – to the best of my ability – with photos from my recent trips to Morocco and France. I reinvented my brand as a surf lifestyle photographer.

“Build it and they will come”, this quote one of my favorite films, Field of Dreams, stuck in my head. It’s essentially another way of saying, ‘fake it til you make it’, which is what one of my mentoring friends had always said.

Then I posted an ad on a surf and work facebook group, with no real expectations.

*

The next afternoon, Sienna Rose and I headed to our local coffee shop, where no one knew our names. I had a cappuccino, Sienna had a smoothie and each of us had a piece of cake which was the highlight of our birthday celebrations. During that hour I checked my emails twice – and was over the moon! Two emails for surf houses that had seen my ad posted just the night before – one in Portugal and one in Taghazout. It was amazing! I had manifested my intention just as my yoga friend had predicted! Thank you Rachel Youds.

A month later I agreed to a contract for three separate months. Even better? My new boss trusted that I would find childcare solutions and maintain a reliable work schedule.

*

We arrived in Taghazout together this time. We have been here since late August 2019, so really a very short while still. The different stages we have entered and passed through have not been easy. It’s a shock to your inner strength when you are challenged daily with problem solving from a single-parent position. Add to that having a six-day-a-week job that requires all your focus, time and energy, and everything around you is unknown. The heat, the dust, the smells, the public spaces full of men. Seeing no women at any of the normal places you see women in – like shops and cafes.

The language and rhythm of the villages is overwhelming at first to anyone. Sienna was really happy at times, but also sometimes desperately upset to be here. She missed Belgium and school, her grandparents and her toys and her apartment. Our street. The coffee shop where no one knew my name. She had temper tantrums and screaming fits. I was just driven, but at the same time getting shell-shocked. I had no one to turn to and my father and his family had all made so many objections to us leaving Belgium. Any cry for help would have felt like a failure on my part and a win for them. Proof that they were right, it was unwise to bring a child to Morocco.

It was my goal to make it work, and I was determined to move forward. The words of one other parent I had met online rang constantly in my ears and gave me strength.

“If you’re going to make it here with a child,” they said “it’s going to be hard, and you are going to have to be really resourceful.”

This word – resourceful – became my motto and shield to negativity. When I felt frustrated and stuck, or was just trying to make it through the current temper tantrum. A screaming 7 year old who had been crying for over an hour at the top of her lungs.

‘Believe in Your Dreams’ says the t-shirt….well this is the reality of believing in that dream. Another mood.

Most of the time I was just frazzled. For the first two weeks I was in a panic to find a school situation for Sienna. This would prove troublesome, with transport to the city of Agadir 40 minutes away by car, but one and half hours by public transport. Our apartment was barebones. All of the things I had let go of with abandon and a sense of freedom on my departure, were now needed for basic living needs in an empty home. I had no cooking supplies, blankets, pillows or towels – just clothes, computers, surf and camera equipment.

I didn’t know how or where to shop. I didn’t know how to find a bus or change money, or even buy gas for the stove. Berber taxis are a sort of illegal business of small vans, with at least 6 or more people crammed in, almost sitting on each others’ laps. They were uncomfortable for Sienna and I.

The smells of sewage from the empty river, in the next village where the bank machine was located, was sometimes enough to make my stomach churn. The population of shouting men, beeping car horns, the sight of cows heads and goat carcasses hanging next to fruits and vegetables. And all produce open to the air, dirt, flies and all the hungry animals scavenging, was an assault to my senses. The most alarming thing was hearing the fights, yelps and cries of street dogs all night long. I was unnerved and slept badly each night.

Commute Berber style; 50 cents per way. You get what you pay for; comes with diesel fumes, insurance doubtful, the car brakes may or may not be working. Take it or leave it.

I needed to get our home up and running, quickly and on a small budget. I bought two of everything – two forks, two knives, two plates, etc. We brought down a faded and peeling wooden table from the terrace for our meals. We bought a plastic garden chair and confiscated another one. I had printed photos from Instagram as inspiration from other surf photographers – of sunny places and surfer girls and yogis. I had brought a roll of tape and now I pasted them up on the walls, next to taped-up dried palm fronds. We decorated the table and along the floor with seashells and smoothed stones from the sea. Bits of driftwood and pieces of wood from the fishermans boats in cobalt blue.

My new turquoise surfboard, newly bought but still barely used, was put in the corner behind a banana plant.

It all came together in a bohemian, shabby-chic sort of way. It was rough around the edges but authentic and cute. I potted cactus, and bought huge tropical garden plants. Putting them in the apartment gave me the feeling of the boutique hotel that I originally stayed in on my first trip here. We felt at home.

The next thing to figure out was school for Sienna. I didn’t know where to begin with finding schools, or how we would navigate transportation. I had only ten days to make it all come together before my contract started.

Sienna started a new school in Agadir the day before my contract began. It was costing me €600 per month with fees and taxis. On top of that was two hours of commuting for her, and two for me as I needed to drop her off to the next village for a carpool. But at least my family was satisfied that I had solved the schooling issue - like a responsible parent. Of course, it didn’t matter to them if it was costing me almost half my wage to keep her educated. Task number two was complete.