Get Used To The Wait

On my travels back down south this week, I stopped in the town where my friend, who's also a fellow PCV (Peace Corps Volunteer), lives and works. After he met me at the bus station, he took me to the shop where his friends, some Moroccan women who are local artisans, sell rugs. As we were sitting in their shop speaking with them, they invited us to their home for dinner.

After we were at their shop for not too long, we left to go to their home. When we arrived at their home, perhaps around 10:00 p.m., some helwa shebakiya, a sticky, sweet Moroccan dessert, was served. While we knew we would be eating pasta for dinner, there was no sign of when mealtime would be. As the night wore on, it became clear that we weren't going to be eating dinner anytime soon.

At one point, my fellow PCV's female artisan friends left the home. He explained that someone had called expressing interest in buying rugs from them, so they went to meet the potential purchasers. As we commented to each other that it was already late to eat, and that it was getting later for dinner, my fellow PCV joked that his female artisan friends went to Italy to buy pasta.

I was getting very tired since it was getting so late. I was glad when we finally ate, partly because the pasta sauce was delicious, also since I was happy to be eating vegetables in the sauce, and because my fellow PCV cooked the pasta so it wasn't so soft as it is when Moroccans cook pasta. But I was also thankful to be finally eating, since we ended up eating dinner at 1:00 a.m.!

"I'm sorry I couldn't make it any sooner, but I was all tied up."

Some words about transportation in Morocco. I think I've already mentioned buses and trains in previous blog posts. One can also get around in Morocco by taking both petit taxis and grand taxis. Petit taxis travel within cities and sometimes within some bigger towns, and typically take no more than three passengers, two in the back seat, and one in the front passenger seat. Grand taxis, which are usually Mercedes, travel between towns and cities, and carry six passengers, in addition to the driver, cramming four people in the back seat, and two in the front passenger seat. Each passenger pays for his or her own place. If a passenger in a grand taxi wants more space, that passenger can pay for an additional seat or for additional seats. But usually each passenger only pays for his or her own seat. Grand taxi drivers ideally want to fill up the taxis because they don't want to miss out on money they can make, so even if a passenger is ready to go, usually the driver waits for the taxi to fill up before leaving town. Sometimes after waiting a little while, a driver will leave with a taxi that isn't full, after making a judgment call that it's better to get going and at least make the money from the passengers who are already there, rather than keep waiting for more passengers, who may take a while to show up.

I was sitting at the grand taxi stand in my town last week, waiting for a taxi to fill up so I could get to another PCV's site to attend an exhibition of talent of local youths. As I sat waiting there, in front of me lie a sheep with three of its legs tied up. And then I thought that that sheep and I were more similar than I had previously thought: neither that sheep nor I were going anywhere until each of the guys transporting us decided that it was time to go.