Maryam El Gardoum is breaking new shores for Morocco’s indigenous surfers

When she was 13 and surf­ing at Devil’s Rock on south­ern Morocco’s sun-baked Atlantic coast, Maryam El Gar­doum felt a pull on her board’s leash. She turned around to see a local man, who she often saw in the water teach­ing his own kids to surf, with a stony face. ​“You’re catch­ing a lot of waves,” he said. ​“Your place isn’t here – go home and help your mum.”

It wouldn’t be the only time that Maryam, now 27, expe­ri­enced misog­y­ny dur­ing her career as one of Morocco’s most suc­cess­ful women surfers – she won her first nation­al title at 14 – but it was one of the most mem­o­rable. ​“It didn’t make sense as I was almost the same age as his kids,” she says. ​“I stayed chirpy, but I felt the pain inside. Though it also gave me a strong push, I didn’t take it as a neg­a­tive – I was like: ​‘I’m going to show you!’”

She had always loved play­ing in the ocean. Her dad was a fish­er­man, and from the age of three he’d take Maryam and her broth­ers to the beach, where they’d teach her to swim by jump­ing off rocks. At 11, while her broth­ers were surf­ing, she bor­rowed a body­board from one of their friends and decid­ed to stand up on it – no mean feat, giv­en that they’re designed to be rid­den on your bel­ly and are noto­ri­ous­ly unsta­ble – but she man­aged it on the first try.

Her broth­er gave her a go on his short­board: ​“a tiny and slip­pery thing”. ​“It was one of the worst expe­ri­ences I’d ever had,” she says, laugh­ing. But soon after, her cousin lent her a mini mal, a far eas­i­er board to learn on. ​“I felt like every­thing was mov­ing around me, then I realised it was me that was mov­ing,” she says. ​“My feel­ings about surf­ing com­plete­ly changed, I want­ed to catch anoth­er wave, and then anoth­er and another.” 

Equip­ment was scarce when she was learn­ing in the mid-to-late 2010s, and unlike today where surf schools are scat­tered up and down this pop­u­lar stretch of coast­line, there were just a hand­ful of surf camps, pro­vid­ing surf instruc­tion and accom­mo­da­tion for British and Euro­pean guests. So, she taught her­self on boards begged and bor­rowed from her broth­ers and cousins, and their friends.

• Read next: The rebel­lious roots of Cornwall’s surf­ing scene 

Maryam, who is of Amazigh – the indige­nous peo­ple of North Africa – her­itage, was the only girl in with the boys, but soon oth­er local girls saw her in the water and asked if they could join too. Though back then, she says, they would often be put off because of the cold water and lack of decent wetsuits.

“We had some wet­suits, but they were thin, spring ones, so not real­ly right for win­ter here. But I didn’t care because I loved the sport so much and didn’t care about the cold,” she says. ​“I would go into the water, catch two waves then go back onto the sand to warm up in the sun.”

When Imouran Surf Asso­ci­a­tion formed at near­by Tam­raght, she want­ed to be a part of it, but the sub­scrip­tion was €30 a year. ​“My dad had always been sup­port­ive of me surf­ing but I had sev­en sib­lings, who were all study­ing and need­ed clothes, and it was hard. But I asked him to give me the chance and he did, and I was so happy.”

• Read next: Pho­tos cel­e­brat­ing indige­nous Boli­vian women in extreme sports 

The local boys who she surfed with were improv­ing faster than she did, which moti­vat­ed her to work even hard­er at her surf­ing. She entered a local surf con­test as one of only two women, win­ning the final against the oth­er woman who was on the Moroc­can surf team. She knew then that this was what she want­ed to do. ​“After win­ning that con­test, it felt like the sky was the lim­it. My next goal was to become Moroc­can cham­pi­on,” she says, so she began surf­ing and train­ing in earnest.

In 2011, when Maryam was 14, a local surfer encour­aged her to enter a nation­al surf con­test in the north of the coun­try. She didn’t think she was ready but went along all the same and came sec­ond. ​“I wasn’t hap­py about the result,” she says. ​“It was about com­ing first or noth­ing for me.” The competition’s win­ner was 32-years-old, and from then on, she was the stan­dard to beat.

The next time they met, she was so ner­vous that she was sick before her heat, but she man­aged to focus and end­ed up win­ning the con­test. ​“It was a crazy feel­ing, and every­one was so hap­py for me as a young lady com­ing from the south of Moroc­co,” she says.

Maryam would go on to become Moroc­can cham­pi­on five times, com­pet­ing in the Euro­pean Cham­pi­onships three times. But she admits it’s been chal­leng­ing at times to be a young woman surfer from an Amazigh vil­lage. ​“I got a lot of sup­port from local surfers from the start, but it was trick­i­er with peo­ple who didn’t know about surf­ing. Most of them were against it,” she says. ​“They would say it’s risky for girls, and that if I want­ed to do sport, I should find some­thing else, rather than fight with the ocean and put myself in danger.”

When she start­ed win­ning, peo­ple who hadn’t sup­port­ed her before, would say: ​“Oh, she’s from our town!” On one hand, she found their response frus­trat­ing, but most­ly she was hap­py that more locals accept­ed that she was a surfer and were begin­ning to let their own daugh­ters surf.

In con­ver­sa­tion, Maryam fre­quent­ly refers to being proud of her Amazigh roots. What are the traits of an Amazigh woman? ​“I’m so inspired by my mum – you can see in her face how strong she is,” she says. ​“She’s 62 but real­ly active and ener­getic. In the ear­ly morn­ing she goes to the banana farm to take care of it every day. I keep telling her: ​‘Let me help you,’ but she says: ​‘I’m strong, I can do it.’”

• Read next: Lau­ra Crane is wav­ing good­bye to sex­ism in surf­ing

One day, while surf­ing beneath pic­turesque sand­stone cliffs at a spot just north of Tag­ha­zout, I saw Maryam in the water swim­ming with fins while coach­ing a group of inter­me­di­ate women surfers – in this case tourists, though she often coach­es locals – with just the right mix of smiles, encour­age­ment, and steely resolve. She was the only woman in a sea of male coach­es and her charges looked like they were hav­ing a blast. 

“I need­ed to do some­thing for myself,” she says of her surf school. ​“I want to live my life as a sim­ple surfer and make a good life for my fam­i­ly. I’m not look­ing for fan­cy things, but Moroc­co is now get­ting expen­sive, so we need to work hard to afford it.”

Surf tourism has explod­ed over the last decade and a half, with the ocean, beach­es, and wind­ing vil­lage streets that spill onto them now con­stant­ly brim­ming with surfers. For Maryam, the changes must be stark? ​“Before this area became a surf des­ti­na­tion for tourists, it was just fish­ing vil­lages and farm­ing. One of my grand­pas was a fish­er­man, the oth­er a farmer,” she says. ​“It start­ed with four surf camps and now there are over 50, it’s insane. But the biggest dif­fer­ence is that peo­ple aren’t poor. In Tam­raght, where I grew up, a vil­lage of 10,000 peo­ple was poor and that’s changed.”

There are count­less employ­ment options that didn’t exist before, she says, such as cook­ing, clean­ing, dri­ving, or teach­ing at a surf camp. ​“There are far more oppor­tu­ni­ties for locals to work,” she says. ​“My broth­er is a surf instruc­tor, anoth­er broth­er works in a hotel, three of my sis­ters are house­keep­ers. Every­one is employed through surf tourism.”

• Read next: The hid­den Philly swim spot sus­pend­ed in time

The only down­side for Maryam is when peo­ple are stay­ing in an Amazigh vil­lage, and they don’t dress appro­pri­ate­ly. ​“In the vil­lages peo­ple are more reli­gious and if peo­ple wear clothes that are too short or real­ly sexy, it’s a bit tricky for peo­ple here, and local men will have to put their eyes down to avoid look­ing,” she says. ​“It’s your body of course and we are a coun­try that sup­ports free­dom but when you come to a vil­lage it’s good to show respect.”

But she is keen to stress that vis­i­tors will only encounter friend­li­ness from local peo­ple. ​“Amazigh peo­ple like to share. If you need sun­screen, just ask and they’ll share it even if they don’t know you. Same goes for food or any­thing else you need, we’re here to help. We like to take care of vis­i­tors, so when you leave you feel good, and we feel good too.”

Through her surf school, she wants to speak up for Amazigh peo­ple, who often get writ­ten out of Morocco’s sto­ry, and to share the joy of surf­ing with women from home and abroad. As for the guy who pulled her leash when she was 13? ​“I’ve seen him a lot since, includ­ing after a con­test that I won at Devil’s Rock. He said he was so proud of what I’d achieved. I was like: ​“Yeah, finally!” 

Fol­low Maryam on Insta­gram.

Sam Had­dad is a free­lance writer who writes the Cli­mate & Board Sports newsletter.

Buy your copy of Huck 81 here.

Enjoyed this arti­cle? Fol­low Huck on Insta­gram and sign up to our newslet­ter for more from the cut­ting edge of sport, music and counterculture.

Sup­port sto­ries like this by becom­ing a mem­ber of Club Huck.