The first thing I noticed walking into the botanical garden today was the overpowering smell of plants. There are long beds of sage, rosemary, and cumin throughout the garden, and the sage is blooming, as is almost everything else in the garden. There is pollen in the air so thick I keep sneezing, and the place is bright green. The lily pads in the fountains are blooming, as are the trees along the path and the little flowers in the grass. Everything is alive. There are birds singing and cats running around underfoot.

I love watching people in the garden. I come here often to paint, when I am not writing blogs, and I love observing people. I don’t often see young couples in public, but the garden is full of them. Almost every bench is occupied, especially on a warm afternoon like today. Folks tend to sit facing into the garden here, as opposed to facing the path, which feels more standard in the U.S. There is a woman laughing with her head in a man’s lap, and a couple with their arms around each other under the trunk of a massive tree. I think the peace of the garden, and the relative privacy of a place crowded with trees, makes folks more inclined to display affection publicly. It’s comfortable to be here, where people are entirely focused on themselves. 

While I enjoy the botanical gardens and other nearby green spaces in Rabat, access to natural areas, especially those farther from the city, is limited to Moroccans with a certain level of resources. Ifrane, for instance, is almost the ‘Aspen of Morocco,’ where everything is much more expensive and the houses are huge. Tourists visit the Sahara, staying in old Kasbahs with pools and riding camels and ATVs. Morocco is a major tourist destination for Europeans, because it is inexpensive and has incredible natural beauty. Lingering connections from the French and Spanish protectorates continue to shape Moroccan tourism, and many Moroccans speak French or Spanish, making it easily accessible for tourism, even as many tourists view the country through stereotypes about North Africa and the Muslim world. At the same time, tourism from wealthier countries makes it difficult for the average Moroccan to get outside the city often, as hotel prices in natural areas are inflated, and areas are overrun by European visitors. Most people have family in the countryside they might visit, but it is not common for Moroccans to travel only to visit the mountains or the desert.

Outside of cities, poorer communities are primarily agricultural. Driving through the countryside, men walk with herds of sheep alongside the road and women tend fields of alfalfa. Different classes in Morocco have very different relationships with the natural world. While my host family loves to hike around Chefchaouen, most rural Moroccans spend time outdoors primarily for work. In cities, poorer neighborhoods have fewer parks and green spaces, while the wealthier neighborhoods have forests and long beaches. The country works to preserve its natural areas, with various national parks scattered around the country, but the beaches and roads are littered with bits of trash, and the ocean is full of floating plastic bags. While the streets of Rabat are swept daily, rural areas are filled with piles of trash, with no apparent effort from the government to clean it up. 

Morocco has an incredible diversity of beautiful natural landscapes, and its government is increasingly concerned with preservation of natural resources, but equitable access to these places continues to present challenges. Here, in Agdal, a wealthy neighborhood of Rabat, the botanical garden is filled to the brim, with almost every bench taken. Twenty minutes away, on the other side of Agdal, is the an urban forest. Back the other way, past the king’s palace and the city center, there are no large gardens in Takkadoum or Youssefia, and only a couple natural open spaces.