I arrived yesterday in Essaouira, a small coastal city, with a half dozen other PCVs (Peace Corps Volunteers). After we got out of the grand taxi, we were collecting our baggage from the trunk amidst a flurry of activity. The parking lot was crammed with grand taxis; people were asking us if we needed lodging; people were moving through the lot with pushcarts.
In Moroccan towns and cities, Moroccans use pushcarts to move a variety of items, including fruits, vegetables, and animals. Yesterday morning in the grand taxi parking lot, I saw a Moroccan man with a large pushcart facing me. I stepped closer to the taxi so he could pass by me. But he didn't move.
Next I thought that he was looking for alms. But he didn't say anything. Nor did he put out his hand as if to implicitly ask for money.
My fellow PCVs had collected their bags, and we'd paid the taxi driver, so I walked away from the taxi with my fellow volunteers unsure what the man with the pushcart had wanted. One of my fellow PCVs said that she sometimes feels bad when she doesn't use the services of the men with the pushcarts. I'd never seen people transporting travelers' luggage in carts, so it hadn't occurred to me that he was waiting for us to hire him to move our baggage.
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