a taxi chase to nowhere
Day Next,
Winter has come to Morocco. It has still been raining a lot, almost everyday and it is cold. But I am extremely happy here still (though I never expected anything else). It has been a while since I last posted so I guess I should start with what I did for Christmas. I spent Christmas with Sara and Judy in Tangier, in the very north of Morocco across the Straight of Gibraltar and Spain. Our original plan was to spend it in the mountains but there was so much rain on the 23rd that the roads were flooded and even the bus station in Tetouan was under a pool of water. It was pretty intense with hail and all. Anyways, after a very nice bread delivery man drove our sad wet selves to the other bus station and after we waited three hours for the next bus to come we finally made it to Tangier. We found a hostel and ate dinner then went to sleep. On Christmas Eve it was still rainy but we walked around the shops for a while in the medina and enjoyed every minute of it. Then in the evening we went to Pizza Hut for our Christmas Eve dinner. Christmas day itself we went to the Kasbah and walked around the blue painted coastal buildings. Something funny I have noticed about Kasbahs is that all the buildings in a little outside the city to the Caves of Hercules which are caverns that lead to the sea. It wasn’t raining but the sky was dark and the sea looked grey and angry. It was still a stunning sight though. I really enjoyed the drive as well. Beautiful landscape! An excellent Christmas.
The next morning I had to say goodbye to Sara and Judy. They were off to Spain and on their way home. Their time in Morocco was spent for now but I was off back to Meknes, my home. It was sad saying goodbye to the last remaining ISA student and my friend but that is life.
Goodbye Sara and Judy!
When I arrived back home I was greeted by “We missed you!” from my host family which made me feel fabulous (though the shower and clean warm cloths helped a lot too), but the next morning I had to leave on a wild goose chase to Casablanca.
Casablanca… So the reason I went there was because the package my family in America sent me was stuck in customs and they wanted me to pay over a $100 to get it. Fedex told me that I could either pay or I would have to go there and argue my way out of it. So I went. After riding in the most uncomfortable train I have ever seen in my life I arrived and told a taxi to take me to the address I found on the internet. It was all the way on the other side of this huge city and it was, of course, no longer the correct address. They had moved. It took me 30min to find another taxi and, because Fedex had told me to call them so that they could tell the driver where to go when I found a cab, I tried but my phone wouldn’t work in the cab. So I had to find another cab and my phone wouldn’t work in that one either but I was lucky enough to have spotted, on one of the forms a man had delivered to my house, the address in the fine print. Another long taxi ride and I finally made it to my destination.
When I spoke with the lady representative she just gave me a stunned look and told me that I didn’t ever need to come in the first place.
I almost started crying right then. After all the problems trying to get people on the phone to tell me what I needed to do, the train ride, finding the building, the taxi rides, all for no reason! What?!?!
I was so angry and mentally exhausted I must have looked pitiful, at least that’s what was reflected in the lady’s eyes. All I could do in the end was ask, “Well, why did they tell me to come then?” She apologized, for what it was worth, and told me that there was no way I could get my package that day and that all I could do was sign some form and leave. She did promise to take the matter into her own hands; However, and that she would call me in two or three days. If customs released it they would send it to me but if they still wanted to charge me an exorbitant amount of money Fedex would just send it back to America.
So I left after a completely fruitless chase. I took a taxi to the train station got a ticket then went and ate lunch at a restaurant close by. As I walked towards the train I realized that there were entirely too many foreigners at the platform and glanced at my ticket. They had given me a ticket for Marrakesh not Meknes and I hadn’t realized it because the price was the same. So I went back to the desk told them that I wasn’t going to Marrakech and had them switch my ticket which, of course, meant I had to wait longer for my train. It was the same uncomfortable train I had arrived in.
Not one of my favorite days.
After a couple days I did receive a phone call from the woman, Lotifa, who told me that she got customs to release my package for free and that it was on its way. The next day it arrived. Apparently they realized that there was no way I was going to hand over that much money to a corrupt customs official.
I guess I thought that this story was important because it a good example of how the lack of a controlled infrastructure makes life hard for everyone. Not just for foreigners but for everyone here. Whether it is how students didn’t know when their exams were going to take place at the university until the week before, or how a man trying to build a building dug so deep and caused so much erosion that the surrounding roads became unstable and unusable but didn’t face any consequences because of who he paid off, or how the water needs to be shut off after the rains for at least half of the city everyday because the system is second class and is easily contaminated, it is difficult to sort through the system but it is everyday life for Moroccans.
Winter has come to Morocco. It has still been raining a lot, almost everyday and it is cold. But I am extremely happy here still (though I never expected anything else). It has been a while since I last posted so I guess I should start with what I did for Christmas. I spent Christmas with Sara and Judy in Tangier, in the very north of Morocco across the Straight of Gibraltar and Spain. Our original plan was to spend it in the mountains but there was so much rain on the 23rd that the roads were flooded and even the bus station in Tetouan was under a pool of water. It was pretty intense with hail and all. Anyways, after a very nice bread delivery man drove our sad wet selves to the other bus station and after we waited three hours for the next bus to come we finally made it to Tangier. We found a hostel and ate dinner then went to sleep. On Christmas Eve it was still rainy but we walked around the shops for a while in the medina and enjoyed every minute of it. Then in the evening we went to Pizza Hut for our Christmas Eve dinner. Christmas day itself we went to the Kasbah and walked around the blue painted coastal buildings. Something funny I have noticed about Kasbahs is that all the buildings in a little outside the city to the Caves of Hercules which are caverns that lead to the sea. It wasn’t raining but the sky was dark and the sea looked grey and angry. It was still a stunning sight though. I really enjoyed the drive as well. Beautiful landscape! An excellent Christmas.
The next morning I had to say goodbye to Sara and Judy. They were off to Spain and on their way home. Their time in Morocco was spent for now but I was off back to Meknes, my home. It was sad saying goodbye to the last remaining ISA student and my friend but that is life.
Goodbye Sara and Judy!
When I arrived back home I was greeted by “We missed you!” from my host family which made me feel fabulous (though the shower and clean warm cloths helped a lot too), but the next morning I had to leave on a wild goose chase to Casablanca.
Casablanca… So the reason I went there was because the package my family in America sent me was stuck in customs and they wanted me to pay over a $100 to get it. Fedex told me that I could either pay or I would have to go there and argue my way out of it. So I went. After riding in the most uncomfortable train I have ever seen in my life I arrived and told a taxi to take me to the address I found on the internet. It was all the way on the other side of this huge city and it was, of course, no longer the correct address. They had moved. It took me 30min to find another taxi and, because Fedex had told me to call them so that they could tell the driver where to go when I found a cab, I tried but my phone wouldn’t work in the cab. So I had to find another cab and my phone wouldn’t work in that one either but I was lucky enough to have spotted, on one of the forms a man had delivered to my house, the address in the fine print. Another long taxi ride and I finally made it to my destination.
When I spoke with the lady representative she just gave me a stunned look and told me that I didn’t ever need to come in the first place.
I almost started crying right then. After all the problems trying to get people on the phone to tell me what I needed to do, the train ride, finding the building, the taxi rides, all for no reason! What?!?!
I was so angry and mentally exhausted I must have looked pitiful, at least that’s what was reflected in the lady’s eyes. All I could do in the end was ask, “Well, why did they tell me to come then?” She apologized, for what it was worth, and told me that there was no way I could get my package that day and that all I could do was sign some form and leave. She did promise to take the matter into her own hands; However, and that she would call me in two or three days. If customs released it they would send it to me but if they still wanted to charge me an exorbitant amount of money Fedex would just send it back to America.
So I left after a completely fruitless chase. I took a taxi to the train station got a ticket then went and ate lunch at a restaurant close by. As I walked towards the train I realized that there were entirely too many foreigners at the platform and glanced at my ticket. They had given me a ticket for Marrakesh not Meknes and I hadn’t realized it because the price was the same. So I went back to the desk told them that I wasn’t going to Marrakech and had them switch my ticket which, of course, meant I had to wait longer for my train. It was the same uncomfortable train I had arrived in.
Not one of my favorite days.
After a couple days I did receive a phone call from the woman, Lotifa, who told me that she got customs to release my package for free and that it was on its way. The next day it arrived. Apparently they realized that there was no way I was going to hand over that much money to a corrupt customs official.
I guess I thought that this story was important because it a good example of how the lack of a controlled infrastructure makes life hard for everyone. Not just for foreigners but for everyone here. Whether it is how students didn’t know when their exams were going to take place at the university until the week before, or how a man trying to build a building dug so deep and caused so much erosion that the surrounding roads became unstable and unusable but didn’t face any consequences because of who he paid off, or how the water needs to be shut off after the rains for at least half of the city everyday because the system is second class and is easily contaminated, it is difficult to sort through the system but it is everyday life for Moroccans.