Sienna’s wild side blossomed here in Taghazout. She is precocious, silly, immensely creative and stubborn. She is also thoroughly in love and connected to all the street animals that live in our neighbourhood and on the way to all our destinations.

She is currently going through a revolt against good hygiene and refuses to wear her nice dresses. She prefers a shorts, t-shirt and beanie look, complete with unwashed and uncombed hair.

She said the girls in school here questioned her why she looked so nice in her dresses all the time. Now, to my dismay, she has gone the opposite way. Totally scruffy. I wonder if her observing all the surfers go by in unkept surfer fashion also has something to do with this new look. She is overly concerned with the length of her skirt when she does wear one, as it’s also custom for girls here to be covered up with long dresses. We fight often on just hand-cleaning, face-washing and tidying up, both when it’s time to get ready to leave the house and get cleaned up before bed.

She is obstinate in her actions and words — like she grew into a teenager overnight. She sometimes shouts at me and even hit me a few times. Often I despair, and on occasion I felt I was losing my mind with what to do or how to cope. It’s not easy.

As a mom on the go, Sienna constantly getting distracted by animals as we try to get from A to B is frustrating. I found that a fiercely stubborn part of her exists in her personality. I gave up on fighting her to keep her hands off the animals after two months. After shouting, screaming, crying once or twice, begging and bribing, having my parents and colleagues try and dissuade her, I have decided to go with the flow. I’ve accepted that she is the same animal lover as I was as a child and it is her way of connecting as she doesn’t have a local set of human friends.

Joining Moroccan Animal Aid - for sunset dog walks and turtle hunting

At first, and still often, I am warned by my coworkers, locals and visiting passersby to ‘watch out for your daughter! The animals are sick and dirty, and she will get sick or bitten!’

She has learned to recognize a sick animal and more or less respects my orders to not touch these ones. But for the rest, she wins the battle. Shortly after starting my contract there was a rabies scare, which resulted in a mass illegal culling of animals by commissioned hunters. It was very sad. There was a dog that was very ill, by one of the surf spots where I was shooting with Sienna for work. When the news got out that the dog had rabies, all of the other instructors had to go get vaccinations. After a very stressful argument with my daughter, she admitted to having touched the dog as well.

On top of having a full work week in a drastically new environment, this was the type of situation I was not emotionally prepared for. Again, I couldn’t call on anyone for advice. My parents would have just flipped out and used the situation as proof I had made a terrible mistake on moving here.

After that stressful situation passed, I grew more at ease. Sienna has named just about every animal from our apartment to the other side of the village where I work. Her entourage of four-legged followers includes such characters as Cupcake, Nina, Spirit, Mouji, Clooney, Mini, Bella, Harry, Oolo, Pom Pom- the list goes on.

Sienna’s relationship to animals here is heartwarming but also heartbreaking at the same time. As with any third-world country, there are no animal welfare rights. The animals are overpopulated, often sick and having new kittens and puppies all the time — most of whom won’t survive. On Christmas Eve I rescued a lovely smokey grey kitten from a litter we had been feeding and watching.

Sadly, she succumbed in my arms by the evening, too ill from disease. We buried her on Christmas day under an Argan tree in the mountain.I cried harder than I had in two years, releasing all my grief from seeing all the suffering animals and the frustration of it all, at once. The next day my eyes were so swollen I couldn’t even go out without glasses.

Eventually one night Sienna came home with a little white kitten with a black heart shape on its side and black ears. We kept this one and called it Banjo. I spoil it for all the little ones we couldn’t keep.

Just like there is no social welfare for animals, nor is there welfare for the people. In Europe and the States I felt protected from a lot of the ugliness. For example, poverty, environmental destruction, pollution to the ocean and the environment, animal cruelty. It’s impossible to stay here long without seeing these things on a daily basis. For example, the local city where Sienna goes to school basically rounds up all the dogs and puts them into a closed-off area. There, they die by starvation or killing each other.

The local dogs don’t have much hope in making it to an old age as there are culls by hunters with rifles every few months. They don’t care if the dog has been tagged and vaccinated or is a pet. They just shoot to kill. Sienna was so sad when one of the dogs, Charlie, went missing after the most recent shooting. He was shot down right in front of the cafe and he was a sweet and kind dog, no bother to anyone.

As a volunteer for Surf Rider Foundation and an environmentally conscious person, it’s very difficult to witness the daily sewage spilling into the beautiful ocean, and see bonfire on the beach when one is enjoying a pristine sunset. There, all the plastic bottles are collected and then set on fire with other debris. The fires send a dark, foul smelling cloud of toxic smoke into the sky, and the remaining plastic is to be left out to see with the incoming tide.

The desert is a beautiful but cruel place, and only the strong survive here. Just like the Argan tree who survives the desert conditions by reaching its roots down deep into the source of water far below, one must have special substance to survive, a deep reaching root, a core strength, a resourcefulness, a reason to thrive.

*

At first it was unpleasant to walk along the market street as a vegetarian. To pass cow heads and hanging goat carcasses. To see chickens crammed in cages, waiting their turn to be slaughtered, right next to ordered piles of spices and mountains of fruits and vegetables. Stacks of bread and sweets are uncovered for all the flies to enjoy. It’s fairly common for a customer to reach into the bread pile and touch all the bread until they find the right one to pay for.

Buying food is different in many ways than the quick and easy process of grocery store shopping in Europe and the states. Each type of product must be negotiated, weighed and paid for separately at each stand. Creating a cordial relationship with each seller and bartering is an important part of each purchase. When we go to get our vegetables from our preferred seller, they always stuff Sienna’s hands full of pieces of freshly cut fruit. They shower her with beaming smiles and chatter in Arabic in head pats. I think it’s important and refreshing for my daughter to receive the education of where food comes from in this way.

How wonderful is it that on my morning sunrise run, I can see the fishing men head out to sea in their cobalt-blue fishing boats? And that in the afternoon Sienna and I can go together to stand at the beach and see the freshly-caught fish and seafood they caught. How different this is to the shrink-wrapped, sterilized, boxed, canned, homogenized produce of the modern market? Sometimes it’s not perfectly clean and it can be smelly, but it’s authentic.

*

Each day I buy two pieces of freshly baked local round bread- or Khobz- for 1 cent each. I use this for dipping in olive oil or to serve in mine and Sienna’s taghine.To buy it, I enter a small inconspicuous alley that ends at an open door, into a warm dark room.

This room often has men squatting on the floor around a pot of fresh mint tea or a large plate of couscous. This is the local bakery. Inside, a man will greet you in Arabic and nod in acknowledgement. Meanwhile, two or three men work together, continually putting trays covered with dough circles into a fired oven, and pulling out hot loaves. The loaves are then stacked in large wooden boxes and quickly distributed in laundry baskets, towels covering the bread, to the local restaurants and shops. I meet my fellow Moroccan villagers passing to and from this little slip of authentic life. When we greet each other I am always reminded that we are different but the same in taking our daily bread.

Sienna and I have learned to release the tightness of fear and mistrust. We are no longer uncomfortable with being squished into Berber taxi, or being shoulder-to-shoulder with a vastly different culture and people. We have learned to not judge, to just be. We have learnt to experience life in the moment, to enjoy and appreciate things for what they are without comparison. We are all humans in this village with the same amount each day as the rest. We all have tough times with our kids, good days and bad days. We all need to eat, and we all see the same sun rise and set over the ocean, and the same moon rise over the sea.

I really feel a connection here, and I hope Sienna does too. Some rhythm that was really missing from our daily life experience in Brussels.

Another important aspect of our life here is how we have adapted to a much more minimalistic way of life. I was already fairly this way from living off a small salary as a beginning entrepreneur. But moving here with next to nothing and having a limited budget with no clear financial promise ahead meant living waste-free with no unnecessary spending. I had packed a full kitchen away before leaving. Things such as tupperware sets, blenders, a crepe pan, a waffle maker, a juicer and a Nespresso machine. Here, the first time I emptied a glass spaghetti sauce jar I thought “Yes! A tall drinking glass.”

I use empty plastic butter containers for storing spices, empty tea boxes for organizing drawers, empty trash bags as drawer liners, a spare blanket cut in two as seat cushions. My large iMac sits on a patio table. It makes me laugh because we are so much happier than when I had all that expensive stuff. Admittedly, I miss my Nespresso machine and juicer, and would love to replace it when the time is right, but for now, we have what we need.

Sienna’s creativity has bloomed. She used pieces of toilet paper to create little illustrated books, toilet tubes as painting canvases, and has collected bits and bobs to create characters for her stories or furniture for her dolls. Originally, I would call these pieces she finds garbage, but she sees the treasure in the trash. Sea rocks become their chairs and seashells plates and bowls, to be set at a table made from an empty sardine can.

When I compare her hours of storytelling to all her dolls, and art projects made from garbage, to the hours of my Brussels friends kids spent as zombies in front of tablets and ipad screens, I really can attest that technology kills creativity.

I won’t lie and say it’s been easy here. As Sienna’s space has expanded, so has her insatiable need to push limits and because of this, tempers flare from time to time. I have felt really alone handling the struggles of discipline issues. Not to mention managing a work and child single-handedly is often not fun. Sometimes, I wouldn’t wish the struggle on my worst enemy. It’s a lot to take on in a foreign place with no support. Self care and perseverance toward a goal isn’t simply a luxury for us both, but a requirement for survival.

*

Four months in, things are always changing. My contract has ended and I have decided to search for new ones to push my portrait business. I am getting requests for shoots every few days. We will stay for the time being and continue to create a life that feels better in terms of connection to nature and people than any place we’ve previously lived. Even if life is unsustainable long-term in many practical ways here.

I started learning to surf properly, with a surf coach, and will continue to pursue my dream of dancing and photographing on and in the water. It’s quite possible I may be the next photographer at that surf company I interviewed with three years ago.

I conquered my fear and got out of being stuck. I flew to a new place without promise of success, future sustainability or security. I also conquered the fear that being in my 40’s was too late to start over, that turning 50 meant the end, and that a single parent could not follow an unconventional dream without support from others.

The two of us at our favourite spot, Petite Plage.

*

I turned 50 last week and drank spicy, hot mulled wine in a little apartment on the waterfront with my new friends. A delightful creative bunch including a Dutch yoga teacher, English illustrator, Danish web developer, Hawaiian musician and Aussie tattoo artist, all with whom I surf with regularly. Surf, which was part of my romantic vision for my life. My work has blossomed and I continue to develop my brand and hope to continue with contracts eventually in other surfing-based locations around the world. Why not?

As I write this on my laptop, Sienna is playing with her dolls and drawings on a Moroccan-tiled terrace above the sea. I can see my favourite beginner’s surf spot below. I know when I am finished my work that the sea is there for my daily lesson, whenever I want to dive in.

Never disregard the powers of the sea to heal, restore and challenge yourself. We will most likely see a beautiful sunset and sit at the cute cafe where everyone knows our name. And since it’s Sunday night, there will be traditional Berber music played on the guitar and Banjo. After putting Sienna to bed I will do one of my most favorite and peaceful things to do. That is, the simple act of hanging my laundry by moonlight, looking up at the thousands of constellations in the beautiful African sky above, listening to the crashing of the waves, the barking of street dogs, and quiet village chatter of nightlife below. And so the day ends and the adventure unfolds with new horizons and life lessons.

I would like to thank and mention the following people:

Caitlin Creeper - writer, writing coach, content creator. Thank you to Caitlin for helping me with courage, support, word crafting and weekly inspiration with her group journaling group connected with the Salty Souls. Check her out, she is awesome!

https://caitlincreeper.com

Moroccan Animal Aid - who tirelessly help the street animals in need in Taghazout, Agadir area and Imsouane. Please donate or check out their page to read their stories of everyday heroes and animal activists.

https://moroccoanimalaid.com

Mery Surf Coach - Meryam El Gardouam ISA certified surf coach in Taghazout. Inspiring and motivating surf coaching and training for women. One of the first female surf champions from Morocco, a leader and role model, paving the way for change and visibility for women in surfing.

https://www.instagram.com/merysurfcoach/?hl=en