I can finally have a sober moment in which to write this. I am in between classes (8-10am and 4-6pm Mondays thru Fridays) and people are going about their own ways so there is not much distraction.
I arrived last Friday afternoon here in the Arabic Language Institute in Fes, Morocco, and a lot of things have happened since then. So I will just recount my luggage saga here and then write about my newfound friends in our very own “MTV Real World”-esque villa separately.
My plan was straightforward from the get-go. Leave Boston, spend the 3 hour layover in JFK reading on my Kindle and eating a fastfood lunch, take the 9 hour flight to Casablanca and then a 5-hour train ride to Fes. That seemed simple enough.
The Delta regional jet was stuck in the runway in Boston for two hours, and I ended up running around JFK to find my gate which was in another terminal. I made it just in time as the airport personnel opened a new security line for all those catching a flight to Casablanca. I breathed a sigh of relief as I entered the Royal Air Maroc plane. Little did I know that my luggage didn’t make it to the plane with me, and that the plane meal of fish and potatoes would be the last in the next twenty four hours.
I could have sworn that the 9-hour plane ride with a common TV screen with cramped seats and noisy kids all over would be the worse part of the trip. I ended up in the Casablanca airport, which looked decent enough (I have a wide range in terms of standard – from the dingy regional airports in the Philippines to the magnificent (in my opinion) Schipol airport in Amsterdam), and waited for my bag and waited and waited and waited…
That this thing was happening to me was inconceivable. Several things were running all over my mind at the same time. What would I wear, where do I go? It has never happened to me. The airport guys seemed stoic, even indifferent about it. They said, “don’t worry, we’ll send it to Fes.” That was Friday morning, 9am Morocco time. Resigned to my current fate, I took the airport train to Casablanca train station which was part of an enormous national railway system that connected different parts of the country. To be fair, that seems to make going around Morocco a whole lot easier. Carrying just my backpack made travel light and easy. But I was exhausted and drained and starving. It didn’t even occur to me anymore that I should remember to buy the “first class” cabin ticket instead of the second, and that I will appreciate the difference. Sure enough, I felt like the supreme oddity in there with a lot of sleazy looking guys. And everybody doesn’t even know the concept of discreet staring. If they want to stare, they want to make sure you feel that they’re staring at you. This would be a common occurrence wherever I go from that point on. A couple of guys tried making passes at me in incomprehensible French. One luxury of not understanding the language. I had no idea by the way where and when the train is supposed to stop, so I just figured if it’s a Fes train then the last stop must be it. It turns out there were two stops and one guy helpfully pointed out I should get off at the first one.
I took a taxi from the train station to the school, at 20 dirhams (about 2 USD) and somebody would point out later that this trip should only cost me half that at most. From Friday on up to yesterday (Monday), I spent a lot of SkypeOut credits calling Royal Air Morocco New York, and my mom and my friend in the UK who tried calling the Morocco number from Skype which didn’t seem to work. The answers, scattered throughout these four days were variations of the following answers in English, Arabic and French. a) Your bag is in New York. We will send it to Casablanca in the next available flight; b) Your bag is in Casablanca. We will send it to Fes in the next available flight; c) Your bag is already in Fes airport but call us later so we can be sure if your bag is one of those here; d) We don’t know where your bag is, and the person who told you in Fes that your bag is there cannot be sure of anything because even we don’t know where it is; d) Your bag will arrive tomorrow in the midnight flight, e) The guy in charge of baggage is sick, can you call again tomorrow? and f) Don’t worry, they will eventually find your bag. All of these said with such an air of indifference and no sense of urgency which frustrated me endlessly.
Welcome to f--- Morocco.
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