Surfing onto the world stage
The scene at the Agadir Open looks like something out of a Southern California surf competition: A white sand beach, a DJ booth blasting pop music and clusters of young men in board shorts. But the mint tea on the judges’ table and blue fishing boats along the shore give the scene a distinctly Moroccan feel.
The ridge above the beach is packed with locals who have come to watch hometown favourite Meryem El Gardoum compete in the contest’s first ever women’s final. The 20-year-old is in a crimson wetsuit, riding a pink surfboard. Beside her in the surf, clad in neon yellow, is 37-year-old Fatima Zahra Berrada, Morocco’s three-time national champion.
After 20 minutes, an air horn blasts and El Gardoum pumps her fist in the air. She’s won. An announcer calls out that Berrada has placed third. They catch their last waves to shore.
Although it’s the first time the Agadir Open has held a women’s division, El Gardoum and Berrada have been competing at other Moroccan surf contests for years. Recently the two also travelled with the national team to the International Surfing Association’s World Surfing Games in France, making them the first women to represent Morocco at a surf contest abroad.
El Gardoum hails from Tamraght, a village just north of Agadir on the Atlantic Coast. The region is home to a number of internationally renowned point breaks that have attracted wave-hungry tourists for decades. Visitors don’t expect to meet a world-class surfer from a relatively traditional village.
“When I meet the people and they say, ‘Where are you from?’ And I say that I’m Moroccan and I live in Tamraght, they’re surprised,” she says.
Most families in Tamraght, including El Gardoum’s, make their living from fishing, farming and goat herding. But the area is quickly changing.
Surf tourism has exploded along the coastline. Local people on motorcycles now share the dirt roads with SUVs packed with tourists and boards. Many men work on construction projects serving the tourist industry.
Despite the new jobs, El Gardoum says some of the men aren’t sold on surfing and don’t approve of local women and girls taking part.
“They say if you go to surf, you’re gonna drink alcohol, you’re gonna smoke, you’re gonna go with the boys,” El Gardoum says. She got pushback from local women, too. “They said to my mom, ‘Tell her to stop surfing. It’s not good for her.’ But she told me, ‘Just go to surf. Don’t care about what they said.’ And then I keep surfing, you know? Like if I keep thinking about what they said, I’m never gonna do, like, nothing.”
Berrada says there are other barriers that keep women from the waves.
“It’s an expensive sport,” she says. “It’s not open to everyone. Unfortunately, there are a lot of talented young people who don’t have a way to make living off of their passion.”
But she and El Gardoum want to see women get sponsorships from international surf brands — which support the Moroccan men competing abroad.
And they’d like to see more surfing associations sponsor girls so that they can get a shot at international competitions, too.