A Spanish woman lives on 300 euros per month in Morocco and criticizes "luxury expats

Based in the Taghazout region, on the west coast of the kingdom, this young woman from Gavà has made the radical choice of total immersion. Arrived in June 2024 for a simple one-month volunteer work, she finally decided to settle permanently after falling in love with the atmosphere and local culture. Unlike many foreigners who remain in their bubble, Jana has made language her absolute priority. For her, learning Darija is "the bare minimum" to be treated like a local. This linguistic mastery has allowed her to forge deep ties with the population, to the point that she now avoids frequenting other foreigners in order to focus exclusively on her Moroccan circle.

Her daily life is far from the cliché of the gilded expatriate. Jana leads an austere life with a monthly income of around 300 euros, which she derives in particular from dance classes given in the neighboring village of Tamraght. With this amount, she covers her rent, the rental of her professional studio, and her food, admitting that supermarket prices are high and that she can never afford to dine out. This economic reality fuels her anger towards a certain type of Western immigration: she says she is "totally against" the expatriates who arrive with Swiss salaries to spend only 200 euros on site, reproducing according to her the gentrification mechanisms she was fleeing in Catalonia.

Her criticism extends to tourists influenced by TikTok, often disappointed by the gap between viral videos and reality. Faced with Spaniards surprised by the rustic aspect of Taghazout, she ironically reminds them that this surfers’ village is not made of trendy cafes, but of goats, cows and sometimes waste. For Jana, the value of Morocco lies in this rural authenticity and the disinterested generosity of its inhabitants, far from the artificial luxury of large cities like Marrakech, which she compares to a "Barcelona of the last century".

This immersion has also allowed her to observe the condition of women from the inside. While she notes a certain social pressure that "curbs" women from birth, she has created through her dance classes a space of freedom where European and Moroccan women mix. She proudly recounts seeing her local students express themselves without restraint to "sexy style" rhythms, away from outside eyes. Despite this visceral attachment and a philosophy of life modeled on the Moroccan "carpe diem", the adventure has an expiration date. Due to her inability to save with her current income, Jana plans to leave Morocco next summer at the end of her lease, to return to work in Spain and replenish her coffers before looking for new waves elsewhere.