The police arrived to work around 8:30 am. This meant between sunrise and 8am, one could more or less count on a sneaky beach morning if you walked along the ocean front, away from Taghazout.

I lived for this hour. This beach routine was my lifeline to balance out the stress of the village life. It gave me space to exercise and be alone in my happy place. Beautiful as always, when the greens and blues stretched out before me it radiated calm and peace.

For the first time ever, one could experience a totally empty beach where all traces of human problems and pandemic news was irrelevant. No noisy teenagers and families, surf schools in session, groups of men playing soccer. Absent were the camel and horse owners to urge you to take a ride in exchange for a coin. No insistent men asking me if I wanted to pay for a plastic lounge chair and umbrella, or a doughnut, or a mint tea. No men to start making small talk for whatever their aspirations or intentions were.

The only sounds were gulls overhead, and the rush of waves and the wind. To stand in front of the ocean and stare into the horizon, and feel its majestic timelessness seemed to put the world in a different perspective. It gave me another reality to exist in.

The sea was a reminder that there are greater timelines and events that played out long before us and will do so long after we are gone.

It was a great teacher of mindfulness and to be present in the moment.

I observed as I walked each day, all the myriad of small natural events that take place in the water and on the sands, all humming and moving together; the small mollusks, sucking back into the sand after each ebb of wave, blowing up tiny spirts of water from below; small lightning fast silver fish darting from under my feet; the smallest details of beauty of the multicolored sands; shiny iridescent bubbles in the water. I watched the sun rise over purple hazed mountain ridges I never observed before; the light over the ocean shifting from blue tones and adorned with a setting moon. On the other side; warming pinks and oranges starting to glow in preparation for the arrival of the sun.

In each of these moments I felt a simple perfection. I was free from wanting or needing anything else. All I needed was this, all that was around me right now. I was completely satisfied and happy to just ‘be’. So as much as the world was falling apart and mine also was starting to wobble on its foundations, I had this gift, this daily dose of ocean therapy. What a treat it was indeed.

It was in this new landscape, while beach combing for small treasures left by the sea - small bits of Moroccan tile, shells and sea glass, that I also discovered a different type of discarded treasure

The Beach Dogs

My favorite spot to sit near the sand, stretch for my run, and sometimes journal, was a dreamily deserted view from the beachfront of a closed down hotel.

The spot had a sort of a ‘No Man’s Land’ vibe which seemed appropriate. The straw umbrellas jutted out of the sand dunes at awkward angles, and the sand piled up into small mountains in random places depending on the winds. The wooden walking path that was supposed to lead invitingly from the hotel garden to the shore, now skewed sharply to the right. The lounge chairs lay stacked on top of each other, next to a slowly disappearing wooden fence lined with sand. I felt like I was on a desert island. The eucalyptus trees in the garden filled with singing birds in a great chorus of song as soon as the sun started its ascent. It was a delightful place to sit.

A white shadow of a dog was always there. Shy and alone, never coming near, but aware of my presence. Her swollen teats indicated she was a mother, but I saw no puppies. Originally I just presumed she had lost them. Until one day, to my astonishment, all of a sudden a little piglet of a dog waddled out from behind the stacked straw umbrellas, wobbled on the edge of the dune, and tumbled down like a furry ball, landing at my feet with a little poof of sand.

I laughed out loud for the first time in weeks.

Then appeared another, and another! I was giggling by now as the 8th puppy emerged. Fluffy, clean and soft, innocent and hilariously charming as only puppies can be. They made me belly laugh each day, no matter my mood. Each with different markings and different personalities, little bundles of happiness with enthusiastic tails wagging, bright eyed, fluffy little clowns. I ended up spending at least 1 or 2 hours a day with this family and the nearby pack of dogs that made up the canine neighbourhood.

Bonding with the animals was not the replacement for the friendships I had had to cut short, but it gave me a connection and I found myself becoming attached to them. All of the dogs were somewhat friendly or very sociable, and none were aggressive. Many of the adult dogs had an aura of solemness to them that suited the mood. Perhaps the touch of sadnesss was imagined. Their lives were hard and short lived. At night the packs fought over territory and food and the battles were often violent.

From my first visit to Morocco I was most often kept awake at night by their howls and barks and imagined that in those early morning hours the dusty village roads and beachfronts transformed into a sort of canine wild west. Each pack confronting the other in a standoff.

Sadly, in the daytime, they were often pelted with rocks from villagers and horrors of all sorts could be had by the hands of some of the Moroccan, non canine loving people. It was not uncommon for young children to cut the tails and ears of new litters of puppies. The adults poisoned them from time to time, including the cats, and the police routinely gunned them down, even if they were tagged, collared or not. The puppies were just thrown in a pit and buried alive, and I saw pieces of tails, ears and paws, in the village dump area where I visited daily to feed a stray litter of puppies and the young mother we called Chloe.

I unknowingly started to venture down this trail of emotional attachment to the dogs which would prove to be emotionally challenging and heartbreaking.

I developed a bond with one pup with big brown spot on her side, just like her mum’s, and I simply called her Spot. Her sister, who I called Pepper, was white and sprinkled with black spots. And in her litter of pups who were living at the garbage dump, I fell in love with a mini Chloe whom I called Salty. We ran up and down that beach most days, Chloe, a gaggle of other dogs joining the fun, and all the mini Chloe’s barking and yapping. It was a parade of joy for any dog lover. They were my Lockdown crew. There was not a morning I didn’t feel motivated to get down to the beach and see them. I vowed to move to another apartment where animals were allowed, as soon as Lockdown was over and adopt Salty and find homes for Spot and Pepper.

The Daily Catch

Fresh barbecued sardines, charcoal grilled on a Moroccan clay pot on the terrace, at sunset, had become one of my favorite things of all time. I started to scan the sea now, on my morning runs or shopping trips down the hill for the blue fishing boats. If they were headed back for shore I would quickly get home to see if Sienna wanted to join me and we would go down to the edge of the sand where the fishermen kept their boats. This is where they all met for village life talking, and brought in the daily catch, cleaned and sold it in the rough hewn wooden stands. The dying sea specimens, partially shaded from the hot sun by tattered umbrellas, were displayed on wooden crates.

I always felt an uneasy sadness and repulsion standing there watching sea animals in varying stages of dying. I used to have a re-occurring dream, of goldfish in a tank or fish in a container that inevitably gets smashed, with all the water quickly spilling out. In the dream I would go into a panic to save their lives by scooping up the water all over the ground or trying to run and find more water and another container to put them in. The fish flopped around all over the floor, slowly dying as every attempt got foiled. I often woke myself up feeling stressed and with sweaty palms.

As I watched the men poke and prod the feeble arms of a doomed octopus, and animal I know to be highly intelligent, I had the urge to just buy the animal and run down to the shore to set it free. Seeing the spots on the squid change like a kaleidoscope from red to black to red, meant it was still alive. I gently picked up one once and asked Mohammed the fish cleaner if they would survive if I put them back in sea and he shook his head quickly and looked at my quizzically like, why would you ask this question.

I had to resist the urge to buy up the fish and set them all free, and fantasized about going out with the fishing men one day and paying them to throw their catch back into the waves. Alas, this was not in my budget, and knew it seemed crazy, so each time just ended up leaving with a bag of, thankfully fully dead, wide eyed motionless sardines.

As a vegetarian in a meat eating environment, with no large markets nearby, my cooking repertoire was limited. I admit, I am not a very creative cook. With access to only the basics in spices, our menu was not exciting, and at times bland. Vegetable taghine was getting old. So the taste of slightly blackened, charcoal grilled sardines with the simplest of spices like cumin, salt and garlic was like a fireworks display of flavour in our mouths. After trying it for the first time we were hooked. Barbecue sardines on a warm piece of khobz, eating on our dusty terrace over the ocean, felt like being at a gourmet restaurant. Lockdown had it’s moments and discovering this local culinary experience, and our sunset dinners above the sea is something I will never forget.

Not-Working - at Home

I knew for certain that those people with children out of school, at home, were having an exceptionally hard time with this new life. When your kids are home all day, everyday, the amount of work at home literally triples with additional cooking and cleaning. I felt like not more than an hour after washing up the dishes from one meal, my daughter said she was hungry and soon I’d be back in the kitchen preparing another.

Another downside to being home all the time was I became obsessed with having a clean environment, (anyone else suffer from this?). This was probably some self created obsessive distraction or need for control. My pet peeve is dirty floors. I like to walk around barefoot in the heat and love the feeling of cool, clean tiles underfoot. The sand and wind dust added an hour of cleaning each morning which I resented as I wished instead to being doing something productive. I wasted so much time cleaning and am no fan of cooking.

Without a job to go to, I felt like my new role in life was essentially being a total housewife. I felt I was a slave to the routine of just maintaining a clean environment and providing a full belly to my child who didn’t, and couldn’t possibly, appreciate it. My negative state of mind was affecting my relationship with Sienna and I nagged and shouted a LOT. We both needed space and couldn’t take it. I wanted to work for hours at a time and could not do so. Sienna kept a dialogue going almost 24/7 it seemed. There was nowhere to hide. Sometimes if we were arguing about something or Sienna would not stop talking I would just freak out and literally go sit on the closed toilet seat with the door closed and take 2 before the knocking started… “Mommy?..Mommy?!…MOMMMMYYYYY!!???”

I felt totally shattered from all the multi-tasking and constant chatter of an over-talkative 8 year old.

Nanny Rescue

Our life changed for the better and things started to have their own new rhythm when I hired a wonderful lady to help me at home and spend a few hours with Sienna in the afternoons. My neighbor had listened sympathetically to my frustrations of trying to work at home and he had suggested it. So, for the first time ever, I had a housekeeper! I know it sounds indulgent and something only the privileged would have but it was extremely affordable and it also helped her with a small income.

Daily life now started with a joint purpose and a schedule to follow, as the arrival of Hannen at 9 am sharp signaled a team effort of making the household work in a new way. She was efficient, cheerful, down to earth and sympathetic, and she was a great cook. My floors were shiny and clean, my bed covers turned down neatly, and my clothing all organized in perfect rows. It was a luxury and I never once day took it for granted. Sienna and I started getting along better and I felt again at peace.

Eventually she taught me how to shop better on my budget and how to find a bargain for everything. She introduced me into her family home one day and I was so delighted to meet all of her sisters, her mother and father, and finally get a glimpse into a local, tight knit and simply lovely family of people. I felt like I was finally getting a chance to see Moroccan people from a deeper place. It also balanced out the feeling of aloneness, otherness, and being just a ‘tourist’ in a foreign land. If I could I would have had her stay with us forever. Leaving Morocco as I had only just begun to see it from a different side was one of the things I truly regret.

Adaptation

Sienna adapted, as children do, to the new closed in world. We stopped fighting as much and settled into what felt like weekend time forever. My stress levels were lower than they ever had been, as I was not rushing to complete a job or running from event to event. Also, the owner of the house left for a month and we could breathe easier without feeling watched all the time. We took in another kitten, and one day I picked up a sad little pup from the parking lot above, and put it into my basket to bring home for ‘just one night’. By night three we called her Molly and I snuck her in and out of the building in my basket, in case the neighbors might later report me to the landlady.

Faded Magic

The first time the rules lifted and we were allowed to go to the beach I felt oddly uncomfortable being in a place with so many other people. Just seeing more than 1 or 2 people around at one time made me just want to take it all in slowly. Within a few days Taghazout was starting to get crowded with Moroccan tourists rather than foreign tourists and it was also a completely different village. There were no waves for surfing during this season unfortunately. The village was flooded with mostly teenagers and large families. They were noisy, not particularly clean and the garbage began to be everywhere. Even more than before. The local bar opened finally so it was possible to sit and buy a glass of wine, but the bar crowd was no longer the same. It was comforting to see the staff there and they seemed as happy to see us as we them.

But sadly, overall, the ambiance was gone. There were rarely any non Moroccans around or on the streets and after a few weeks I began to tire of the whole scene. It felt like we were in the wrong place and there was nowhere to find inspiration, work as a photographer, and it was hard to meet people to connect with. The beaches were worse because they were crowded and I felt uncomfortable being approached by young men or teenagers. Sienna was not comfortable sitting near them either and in the end, going to the beach was exhausting on a different level than before.

I managed to connect with a few lovely people wanting photoshoots, and making magic again with my camera and new faces was appreciated more than ever. I am especially grateful for that one last surf trip to Imsouane with Kaja and Meryum which happened just in time before rumours of another confinement and beach closure. but it was starting to be evident that the hotels that would be my main source of income, would not be opening any time soon. It became increasingly doubtful that I would be able to build a sustainable life here, as I had originally hoped.

The time to depart was evident. And then new news hit…

The government had announced that tourists had to leave in 2 weeks or risk fines or imprisonment

This announcement created panic and was hard to verify the source as it was not officially announced by the government but by a newspaper, then followed the Embassies one by one as we all were nervously trying to verify truth from fiction online. I felt utterly unprepared for this sudden shift, and was frankly scared to leave my current home and safety without a plan, finances, and contacts elsewhere. I still was clinging to the possibility that things would reopen in September and October and November things would return to normal and I would continue on track, all the stronger for having the courage to stick it through.

It was the angry words during an outburst from of my fathers wife that sowed the first seeds of 'Mommy Guilt. ’ She demanded to know what we were doing in Morocco and declared how it was possible we could be happy there. ‘You’re building a life on a lot of ‘what if’s” she started to shout in an angry voice. When I argued that we would start our life again when my job began with opening of the borders, she was having none of it. The sentence that really hit home and changed everything was, ‘Think about what’s best for your daughter, not yourself’.

After the anger, it got me thinking. Was I being selfish to follow my dreams? Was I being a bad mother for doing so? I couldn’t answer these but I could honestly say that Sienna would be better off in an environment that would offer her more as she grew older, and her social relations, and education really was important and crucial to her development.

As life goes, nothing lasts forever and I received yet another reminder from my father about something worse to me than Covid-19, and this was Brexit. The borders may or may not open, and the tourists may or may not come, but Brexit was definitely finalizing and this was bad news for me. My passport was British. If I was not registered in an EU country by January 2021 I would lose my rights as an EU citizens and would no longer be free to travel and reside without a visa in Europe. For me this would be a total loss of freedom and longterm security.

It was clear to me that I had made very inconvenient choices throughout the last few decades. Choices I had made because freedom to travel and live where I wanted was paramount to anything. I had left behind, here and there, anything that I found blocking my freedom to wander where the heart called; a husband who didn’t want to move, and a house in Canada; full time employment with steady paychecks; cities, countries; the choice to live closer to the extended family help of Sienna’s father, etc. When it was time to go, I just knew it was the right thing to do.

Also another deadline that was important if we were switching tracks, and I knew in my heart it was time to do so, was September 1st the time for Sienna to be enrolled in school. With threats of school being once again closed in Morocco, the thought of her not being able to be in school with other children she had things in common with was not something I would wait longer for.

It was the end to the Moroccan adventure.

Get out of Dodge

Leaving was no easy feat. First I had to decide where I was going to start a new life.

I was not going back, I wanted to go forward. I had many belongings to pack and lots of equipment. The airlines were shutting down one by one, and the one remaining, Air Arabia Airlines, had no customer service line. How typically Moroccan. I mean seriously? We were forced to leave behind our 2 cats with Hannen’s family, who would try their best to keep them, but only outside, much to the distress of Sienna. We could not find a foster for the pup and it was with a heavy heart and a lot of guilt that I put her back into the parking lot and cried all the way home. 48 hours before leaving we were told by an arriving passenger that the airline was charging 10€ per kilo for baggage so we were forced to repack everything a 2nd time in order to reduce the weight.

I had to visit the local police station to inquire if we were going to be prosecuted for remaining in the country past the 3 month visa date, and if we were even going to be allowed to leave or would be required beforehand to go to court. Everyone was confused and no-one had answers. We also had to find a translator and guardian to help us get proper authorization to travel from Agadir to Casablanca, a 7 hour journey in the middle of the night. We had to also find a driver who had authorisation papers. It would cost me a small fortune to leave and once we hit the road for the long track across the country, there was no guarantee the flight would even depart as scheduled or be cancelled completely. It was a departure in my life like no other.

The night before leaving, a French girl who also lived in Taghazout sent me a message on Instagram saying that she had seen me with a puppy in the parking lot, and that all the pups had been poisoned. Attached to the message was an image of 5 puppies, including Molly, lying unconscious in the dirt. She did say that someone had managed to get them to the animal shelter, but she could not say if they were alive or dead…

My stress levels were through the roof

I was angry that I had to leave. I was also sad. I feel like I had experienced a lot of emotion in this place, and appreciated and was connected to the ground that I walked on my walks down to the sea along the bottom of the mountains. I didn’t feel like I understood Morocco at all. But, as it had healed me in ways when I needed it, with its red soil and dust blown mountainsides, lush sunsets, and many beach walks, and youthful lifestyle that I had a chance to live again, even as a single mom. I was heartbroken to let it go and reluctant and nervous to pass back into the world that I feared might wall me in with cemented roads and buildings and responsibilities of modern day life. For decades I had craved wide open spaces and in Morocco is finally where I found them, and it’s vagabond charm and unruly way of life had suited a part of me.

There is, for some, a Moroccan resonance that gets into ones bones - a mixed up dust storm of colour, warm light reflected off mountains and sea, a dirty, messy, humanity and beauty of nature and animals and rough life on the edge, with one foot in the past. As I walked the last few sunsets along my usual route out of the village, through the roads forever stuck in construction, a sort of no mans land, dotted with the occasional tied up camel, and the forever stray dogs, I had to say goodbye to it all and my eyes filled with tears and spilled down my cheeks, my heart feeling like it would explode from raw emotion. The animals I had loved and their stomping grounds before they died, were the most difficult to pass. I remembered each little uplifted canine face.

Am sad to report the end of Spot and Pepper’s life ended tragically through the suffering of rabies. A horrendous disease that the Moroccan government fails to take measures against properly. My friend Nathalie was brave enough to pick her small emaciated body, barely breathing, and place her into a small box. We gave her to Moroccan Animal Aid. She died in the back of the truck. And I regret that we didn’t take her directly to the vet to be euthanized, in hindsight. All of the pups disappeared. Chloe’s family were either buried or shot, 3 days before Lockdown ended, with many of the canine crew. She survived, she is a survivor. I will never forget them. My photos are a testament to their beauty and brief, sunny existence.

When my driver was ready, with the car packed to the roof stood, he stood waiting for us to say our goodbyes on our street. I hugged our landlady for a good solid 20 seconds. A long hard embrace that was full of emotion. It was my way of saying, ‘thank you, thank you for providing us a home I felt safe in (if not often annoyed in), thank you for accepting us, worrying about us and welcoming us). It was the first time we had ever touched and I feel like she knew what I was saying as I felt her arms also firm, around my body.

I tried not to cry when we had to say goodbye on the steps to Hannen, our housekeeper, who had gone above and beyond to help us over the last crazy 9 days of leaving. She had become a friend, like an adoptive auntie, and I could tell her no nonsense manner, meant tears should be kept in check and keeping them inside was a feat of strength because I felt like bawling.