Garbage Day

“Garbage day today,” says Vladimir the German.

The truck aggressively overshoots its’ stop, nearly plowing through the outdoor table. I hold the black and white kitten, “Smushi,” and listen as the ‘cool surfers’ talk about surfing in a cool, hardcore way.

“About time,” I reply, sipping my café au lait.

Vladimir bummed a ride from Mystery Beach, with Darkah and I last weekend- that is how we met. He introduced me to the Berber family that became my landlords. So he is pretty much my new best friend.

Vlad, as I may start calling him, is early-forties, bald, always smoking, and is hoping to buy goat skins while here in Morocco. Apparently his son has several pictures of Hindu deities in his room, and would like to place goat skins on the wall as a sort of offering. Makes sense.

Another bald man at the table is brazenly lighting a joint and talking about how we should surf Panorama Beach today: glassy, perfect curling lip, etc. His face has devolved into a display case of sorts where he shows off the years of hard drinking, smoking, drugs and sun.

He wears those circular earrings that go inside the earlobe, stretching it out, and making a little window. The holes in this man’s ears are held open by black, rubbery, bottle-cap sized implements. Without the ear fashion statement, he would look like any Parisian drunk you will find, crouching on or near the quays. Instead of looking like a typical degenerate, his ear adornments bestow a tentative handhold- one last claim on youthfulness- he is, after all, here, in Tagazhout.

There is an invisible thread looped through the holes in his ears and it simultaneously keeps him from the precipice- for just a moment more, and holds him out as a warning to this hard-living, younger crowd. He is Tagazhout’s Sword of Damocles, hanging over the excessive lives of the surfer youth. Watch out- when he falls on you, you become him. In this way, his presence is imposed on the ‘cool-surfer’ crowd.

I wander back towards my apartment, taking pictures. The streets look like the cement-mixer operator was told to, ‘just have a good time.’ The streets are actually not streets, but winding, nameless alleys. The houses are marked only by a number affixed to the door. The door though is what gives this town character.

Each brightly colored door is either intricately patterned or interestingly warped, or both. So if you can envision a winding, rubble strewn path contrasted with flares of pastel limes, bananas, tangerines and teals, you can see how a short walk evolves into a photographic binge.



Then I got high.



Remember garbage day?

I naively thought I would be able to upload my pictures onto my computer, and take a look before I went surfing. Hell, I had woken up early, and I had the day ahead of me.

A lovely breeze rolled in with the crashing waves below my open-air sitting area. I lounged for an instant with my computer, reviewing pictures.

That’s when they started burning garbage.

I kept thinking the fumes would move on. I edited photos for two hours in the midst of a town-wide smoke-session.

Right now, my right eye is swollen, and the entire right side of my head hurts, and I’m pretty sure I stood on the ledge of my balcony and at one point during the prayer call yelled,

“Get off the mic!”

The muezzin is shit here, though.

If the muezzin in Agadir sounded like he was trying to attract a passing pod of humpbacks, the guy here moans in profound agony- I don’t even think this man’s antics have a base in religion.

From his performances so far, I have discerned this much: He yearns to be a hunted whale. His fantasy is that he is exhausted and panting from being chased and as he comes up for air, he sees he is caught: a Norwegian whaling boat is upon him and all the robust sailors stand ready with their harpoons.

There may be a rotation- Vlad swears that last week he heard a different speaker. He said the man quietly intoned,

“I like underage Asian girls. There. Okay?”

“No. Do it again, Hasim.”

It would be better if there was a rotation. They could have a different muezzin each day, and each day the guest host must confess their sexual fantasy publicly, and in this way, alleviating their need to act on it.

I suppose I seem insensitive to Islam. All I want is a little more performance value- mix it up: give us a story, give us a beat, give us a report on the surf.

Or maybe just remember this, Arabic countries:

If you burn trash and call prayers at the same time, I can’t be held responsible.