The first legislative parliamentary vote since the King introduced some reforms to the constitution took place last Friday. On my way to school I noticed that the streets, sidewalks, roundabouts, and even many bushes were covered in these small papers. The image represents a different party and becomes their 'symbol' on the voting ballot. Pictured here is umbrella, and what seems like someone against wheat. The papers swirled around in the traffic and it didn't seem like anyone was paying attention to them. It was as if someone crossed Agadir in a low flying helicopter and shook empty a bag of leaflets to scour the streets. I wondered how long we would be trampling over them. Agadir is a particularly tidy city, but there can still be a lot of litter here and there. Surprisingly, the next day most of the papers were gone. That mysterious helicopter did another pass and vacuumed everything up! The results of the vote had the Justice and Development Party, a moderate Islamist party, winning the most seats.
The banner is encouraging people to vote, but what I like about this picture from the New York Times is it is a good snapshot of a lot of the types of young people we see in Agadir. It is a very familiar grouping: A couple being somewhat affectionate in public, some girls cover their hair, some don't, some dress more modestly, boys and girls hanging out together but usually mostly girls, and usually mostly boys...and most often a couple little ones running among the teenagers and grown ups.