Six in the morning, and the port already smells like the sea gave up its secrets overnight. I follow the noise before I follow anything else. Essaouira wakes up loud, all gulls and diesel and men shouting numbers that mean nothing to me and everything to them.
The boats come in blue and chipped, paint peeling like old nail polish. Crates hit the ground. Sardines, still slapping, pile into silver dunes that catch what little light comes over the ramparts. A man in rubber boots hoses down the concrete, and the water runs pink, then clear, then pink again. Nobody looks at the tourists. This is not for us. That’s what I like about it.
The auction itself is a kind of theater with no stage. Buyers circle the fish like they’re reading a contract only they can see. Hands cut through the air, fast, specific, a whole vocabulary I’ll never learn. Someone yells a price. Someone yells back. Somewhere in that noise, a deal happens, and the crate moves on before I’ve even decided which frame to take. My camera drinks it in anyway. Half-blind guesses, most of them. A few will be right.
I hold my coffee with both hands, more for warmth than the caffeine, and think of the fish markets in Sao Paulo my avó used to drag me through as a kid, the smell that clung to my clothes for the whole day after. Different port, same choreography. Some things travel better than others: the shouting, the salt, the particular boredom of the cats waiting at the edges for scraps, patient as monks.
A boy, maybe ten, watches me watch the auction. He points at my camera, then at himself. I take the photo. He nods once, satisfied, like he’s just closed his own deal, and disappears into the crowd of aprons and crates. I don’t know his name. I have his face on film, though, somewhere in a roll I won’t develop for weeks.
By seven thirty the frenzy thins out. The ice melts a little faster in the growing heat. Gulls fight over what’s left on the ground. I finish the coffee, cold now, and stay a while longer anyway. *Cheirinho* of brine and diesel in my hair for the rest of the day. Worth it. The port doesn’t perform for anyone. It just happens, whether or not you bring a camera to catch it.
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