They arrived this morning, by the 6:45 a.m. plane, in Essaouira, a small town on the southern coast of Morocco. It’s now 5:00 p.m. and they are sitting at the Sogebi terrace facing the ocean. At the end of January, the sun is already biting. While meditating, she fills up on vitamin D and feels her body gently relaxing under the sun’s rays. And it’s good! He reads a novel and looks up from time to time to enjoy the view. She drinks a schweppes decorated with an English flag while he enjoys a well-brewed mint tea. A pure moment of happiness far from the turpitudes of Parisian life. A time to recuperate.

Tables are set up along the railing, around each of them three chairs covered with a black sky cushion. On each table, a white porcelain anti-odour ashtray on which the sun’s rays are reflected.

For once, the sea is rather calm and although it is the middle of winter, you can even see many bathers. The waiter is small, with a moustache, wearing a white shirt, a sweater and black trousers like most Parisian waiters. He also wears a black vest in which he slips his pen and notebook to take orders.

For once, the sea is rather calm and although it is the middle of winter, you can even see many bathers. The waiter is small, with a moustache, wearing a white shirt, a sweater and black trousers like most Parisian waiters. He also wears a black vest in which he slips his pen and notebook to take orders.

At another table, two men are drinking mint syrup. They are French pensioners who spend part of the year under the sun of Essaouira. They are faithful Sogebi followers, they meet here every afternoon from about 4pm. They wear that relaxed air of those who have worked well all their lives and who don’t want to be bothered by anything anymore. One of them introduces his companion to one or two shows from his smartphone.

On the other side, where there are alternating red or yellow tablecloths on the tables, a man alone is enjoying a beer while smoking a cigarette and writing very concentrated on his phone. A little further along the promenade, two men are playing checkers on an improvised gaming table that is only held up by their knees. We can guess that they are both having a good time laughing at the perceived laughter.

An African man dressed in a black and grey striped burnous passes along the promenade between the café and the beach. He is talking in video to someone who seems to be on the other side of the world. Magic and mystery of these new applications that make the one who is so far away so close and the one who is so close sometimes so far away. A Moroccan man wearing a black burnous with a pointed hood is riding his bike. Another drops his bike right in front of the café.

A couple is walking up the beach after a walk to Diabat, and the man is helping his wife get the sand off her feet before putting her shoes back on.

The Essaouira Gliss City kitesurf shop lined up its boards in a harmonious monochrome of bright colours before closing its doors for today. Passers-by are under the spell of these shimmering colours.

Time is passing, it is now 6:30 pm. In Italy, we would call the moment that comes, the Passagieta. It is the hour when the sun begins to go down, the hour when women and men like to go out to enjoy the sunset in complete serenity. This time has a consecrated name in Italy but it is a universal moment all over the world. Here, just as in Europe or elsewhere in the world, humans have that sensitivity that makes them all move together in front of the beauty of the sunset.

Children are playing ball on the beach, a bunch of teenagers are also seen a little further on the horizon, and three-quarters of consumers have deserted the Sogebi. Only our two friends landed this morning and the beer drinker remains. The promenade empties out as quietly as the rhythm of the sea breeze. In the distance, we can see the fishermen’s boats returning to port before dusk. A child runs towards the seagulls with all his carefree carelessness.

After admiring the sunset, our friends decide to return via the Place Orson Wells to savour the colours that the setting sun deposits, every evening immutably, on the old walls of the old city. It’s time to return home to enjoy a good Harira soup and read for a few more hours by the fireplace.

Par Nathalie

Translated with http://www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)