“Do you know where I can find the nearest bus stop?” I asked one of the staff in the morning, the youngest brother.
“Where do you want to go?” he asked me.
“To the center.”
“You could walk, it’s not too far.”
I had checked map and it indicated a forty minute walk. Not too far, sure, but in my state of recovering from fever, coughing and shaky, it was too much.
“Then you could take the taxi,” he said.
“Yes, OK, but are there no buses?” I insisted.
“The bus stop is far away,” he said.
“All right, how far?”
“It’s in the other direction.”
“OK, but where is it?”
“It’s the other way, it’s far.”
“OK, well in what direction is it?”
“It’s better if you walk.”

One month of this already, I thought, frustrated; of asking a direct question and receiving helpfulness in the form of the other person trying to solve a problem which I do not have. I was not asking how to get to the center, damn it. I was asking where the bus stop was.

In the end I learned nothing. I grit my teeth and hit the street, decided that there was a bus stop nearby, another member of staff had told me so and I was going to take the bus into town and back, I was not taking an expensive taxi with a driver to whom I could not explain the way and who would probably rip me off, I was not going to walk the forty minutes, I was going to have it my way.

I found the stop, waited for the bus for too long and in the end hailed a taxi with a driver to whom I could not explain where I wanted to go.

He did not rip me off though, or insist on anything else than the agreed-on price even as we had to make a u-turn because he had misunderstood my destination. The older man was friendly, smiled through his beard and accepted my tip. It cheered me up slightly as the majority of my interactions in Agadir had so far made me want to bang my head against things.

On the way back I ended up unintentionally gathering all the nearby taxi drivers around me, spending ages trying to figure out the right shared taxi that would have a route going by my hostel, the men frowning over the map image I kept showing them on my phone, seemingly alien to the town rendered in lines from above. They spoke no English, I stumbled on my poor French.
“The big roundabout,” I kept repeating, here, look, close to here is good enough. I circled the image on my screen with my finger. East, it doesn’t have to be exactly here, but close. Ah, the big roundabout, yes, that one, they nodded amongst themselves.

Of course I was grateful for receiving the help, even as it was exhausting my energy. Once placed in a car, I was happy it would work out.

The taxi filled up and we left. First north, fine, I thought. Maybe he would turn soon. I turned on the GPS on my phone and followed the small, blue dot on the map, just to be sure.
The taxi turned west.
All right, maybe it’s a big route, I thought.
By a big and busy roundabout we stopped and the driver looked at me and gestured the door with his thumb; my stop.
I stared in disbelief. I was further from my hostel than when we had begun.
“This is not where I wanted to go, this is not the right place,” I protested, my French challenged by feelings of dismay.

He flared up at my frustration, loudly gesturing me to hurry and get out. I felt stressed, tears welling up, the two women sitting in the back quiet. He gestured at me to pay, somehow seeming distrustful and I had no words to express that this was not the place I wanted to go, that it was a misunderstanding, that I was sick and too far from home.

I got off and he drove away. I screamed.

Fists clenched I shook and stomped around in circles. I didn’t care about the people staring. Kuken jävla skitfan.

These fucking lazy, cunning men, their eager fingers grasping dirhams, smiles covering greed and hunger for easy money; the futility of staying calm and smiling, trying to charm, to show that I was a person and worthy of kindness. Today nothing had worked. Voice rising above the traffic I cursed it all.

No more trying to explain, no more fucking stupid French, no more questioning, undermining me, no more paying to be brought to somewhere I didn’t want to go. Just tell me where the fucking bus stop is. Why these fucking assumptions, why don’t you know your own city on a map, why these culture chocks, these roundabouts, cars, why the sun, why?

The curses ended in a moan as I got it all out. A sigh sunk my chest, resignation tipping my head backwards, forehead facing sky. I had known that this was not a good day to be challenged. I knew I would solve it all but ahhhh how I wanted to just lay down right there and scream my self into the ground.

I cleaned my frustration off so as to not bring too much of it into the next encounter. When my breathing was stable and the tears had dried up I checked the map, oriented, then started waving down the next taxi in the direction I needed to go. I surrendered; it would all repeat itself, I was sure. And I would go through it again.

…

(This story told in pictures.)