Au Revoir au Maroc
By Karen Kindler
12 Jun 2009
The short line to the outbound Moroccan passport control booth stalled as I arrived. An official pointed a balding German with raised voice and arms to the outside of the security barrier. Case closed. Go. The tourist went.
"Was ist los?" What's up? I asked the couple in front of me.
No immigration form.
Immigration form?! You need one leaving?!
I glanced back toward the security point and the rapidly growing line where the exasperated German squeezed out to look for whatever office had the required forms.
I stayed put. They can't mean me. Then it was my turn. They meant me.
I raised my eyebrows – not my voice – in helplessness. He raised his arm; his head began to drop in dismissal.
"Mais, vous n'avez pas de ...?" I asked, pointing to a stack of cards on the edge of his desk. He blinked, huffed, then shuffled through the stack I pointed to ... and found a blank form.
"Which flight are you on?" he asked in French. Then came another grunt, a raised finger, and instructions to complete the form where I stood, then break back in line when I was finished.
Now, I'm not a cute little girl with ample bronzed cleavage nor someone with a name and position. Middle-aged, rumpled after days on a cross-country bus, and puffy with desert dust allergies, it wasn't my physical charm that got me by.
It was a smattering of French 101 that caught his attention.
"Je suis americaine ..." I had frequently confessed to questions during the week-long tour of the back roads of Morocco, at first unsure of the reception that revelation would bring in a Moslem country.
"Los Angeles!" or "Chicago!" greeted me.
"Mais non ... Florida," I responded. Smiles, chitchat, invitations followed.
I spoke my simple French a hundred times that week. It got me directions and e-mail addresses, and allowed for unique glimpses into the lives of local people. It warmed them to me. I could feel it.
There is power in cleavage and money – short-lived and perhaps insincere (though I have neither in ample supply to really be able to judge) – but, a common language offered with a smile (even a puffy one) creates a bond beyond sex and profit – at least the opportunity for one. It can overcome religious, cultural, and political differences, and, even – sometimes – an overworked bureaucrat's first impulse to send a hapless foreigner to the back of the line.
Cool! N'est-ce pas?!
