Sunday, July 15, 2012

Get In Line

I've learned not to expect lines to form here in Morocco. When buying just about anything, most likely there won't be a line, so if you get someplace first, it doesn't mean you'll be helped first.

Considering this context of lines tending not to form, yesterday morning I was surprised when I was buying my ticket at the train station in Rabat. As I was standing at the counter speaking with the attendant, at a couple of different moments, people came up to the counter and tried to buy their tickets before I had finished buying my ticket. Without giving them any information or selling them tickets, the attendant directed them to go back and form a line.

However, it wasn't as if a revolution had begun in which people far and wide were being directed to form lines here in Morocco. Yesterday afternoon after I had arrived in Marrakech, when I was in the bus station trying to buy a bus ticket back down to the town where I live in the Sahara, Moroccan men were walking up to the counter where I already was, inquiring if certain buses were full, and getting their questions answered before I'd bought my ticket.

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