Unsafe

Oh how Morocco abounds with the unsafe. A health department investigator would go crazy over the medina food, an OSHA officer couldn’t handle the construction methods, and an injury lawyer would be in heaven… if there was a legal system wherein litigation was possible.

So what’s so unsafe you ask? Well let me paint you a picture. Imagine Laura and Chris are walking down the street, talking about our Arabic class when a moped drives by. It didn’t really phase us that the rider wasn’t wearing a helmet, that smoke was pouring out of the exhaust pipe, or that the moped looked like it was surplus from WWI. What made us stare in amazement was that the man riding it was carrying a pile of 2x4s across his lap, piled up so high that only the tips of his fingers could reach over top of the pile and touch that handlebars… Our first reaction was “Can he see over the pile?” and “wow, those 2x4s take up two lanes in width, what if someone comes driving in the other direction?” this was followed by “wonder if he’ll take out any pedestrians?” then “What happens if he needs to turn? That is clearly not possible given his position” and lastly “If he is going to put himself on a very small bike, with dozens of long planks of wood on his lap, piled up so high that he can’t steer, let alone turn, and the lane isn’t big enough for his load, WHY BOTHER WITH A HELMET?”

So this little event inspired us to start a photo contest to see who can take a picture of the most dangerous thing in Morocco. Within 24 hours we had lots of good entries. We are toying with the idea of having an award ceremony at the end of the grant period and voting on the best pictures in each category… possible categories include “most dangerous thing to transport by donkey” “least road worthy vehicle” “building on the verge of collapse, yet still being used” “most overloaded vehicle” and “just because this canister is really old and filled with propane doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do this with it”.

On the topic of things that are dangerous, now’s a good time to tell you about my latest near death taxi experience. Please remember back to my list of top ways I’m going to die… I still maintain taxi death at #1. So we took a taxi from Fes to Rabat and planned to leave in the morning while the drivers were still energized. The taxi driver was all about passing long strings of cars by crossing where the double yellow line would be if that existed here. That didn’t really bother me b/c I wanted to get their soon and he usually abstained from doing it around curves. The problem arose when there was a string of four vehicles that my cabby decided to try to pass, at exacty the same moment that the car in front of him decided to do the same thing… so the car in front of us pulls out into the oncoming traffic lane which pushes us out so we’re straddling the opposite shoulder of the road, when the big truck coming towards us starts to flash his brights. But we can’t get back into our lane until the other car gets back in and it was like a game of chicken. The sound of gravel under tires since we are half off the road, oncoming headlights flashing, driver next to us unphased and me staring forward in disbelief. At the last second a space opens up to let us squeeze back into the lane and I exhale as the truck passed… and a solid 3 seconds later we were in the other lane again, passing the car that almost killed us. Instead of freaking out that we almost died, or flipping off the jerk who pushed us out of the lane, the driver just looks at the other driver and says “shnu?” (what?) and does the accompanying hand gesture turning both palms upward (which of course entailed letting go of the wheel). Would be funny if it happened to someone else.

Best pick up line of the week: “Hey sister do you want to go downtown?”

Best mental image: A donkey was walking through the medina, stacked sky high with propane tanks. All I could think of was “what if someone lit a cigarette?”
leaky old propane tanks on donkey + fire = boom
…and then the medina would be covered with donkey guts. And the real question is, would it look any different?

Best find: If any of you are looking for massive posters of “wet wet wet” or “take that” I know where you can find them

Have a stain on your shirt? You should go to the grocery store and buy ‘black power’. Who names this stuff?

Medina moment that sums up Morocco: Lost in the medina as usual we ask a guy which way to the exit. We’re at an intersection and he says “nishan” (straight) and points in one direction. Then he says “nishan” and points down the street at a 90 degree angle to that one. In disbelief I repeated ‘so if I go straight this way, I get there but if I go straight in the other direction I get to the same place?’ He thought it was very funny that I was having trouble wrapping my head around this. Only in Morocco can you go straight down streets in different directions and end up at the same spot.

Infidel moment of the week: So I’m pretty proud of myself because it is not often that I am mistaken for a Moroccan but I was the other day. I was buying flowers for my host fam and could ask the basics in Arabic and smiled and nodded whenever the store clerk was saying things I didn’t understand. She was telling me how nice it was that I was buying flowers for my family, not understanding that they weren’t my real family. Eventually the jig was up when I was signing the card and had to ask how to spell ‘family’. She asked if I was illiterate and needed her to write the card and I said no, not illiterate, just American. She paused for a second and then said “American? Are you Muslim?” to which I said no… she looked at me with genuine concern and if a comic strip bubble could have popped out of her head it would have said “oh, she’s kind of nice- too bad she’s going to burn in hell” and then she resolved her worry and turned to me and said “maybe you’ll become Muslim soon”. Moomkin (maybe), Really all I could say. “God willing” was her response with a nod.

Moment I wished I had a camera: random guy in the medina on a rainy day with a ziplock bag covering the top of his head.

Disallusion of the week: Every time I hear a donkey making noises that sound like he is in incredible pain and dying, I just tell myself “maybe that’s what a donkey orgasm sounds like” and pretend that it is a happy noise.