Day Two Recap: The kindness of strangers, the danger of ninjas

 So, Thanna and I got a call from Mediha Friday morning, because everyone was about to leave and we never showed up for breakfast. My alarm clock from home said 8:50, but Mediha and my iPod told us it was nearly eleven. Somehow the voltage difference slowed down the clock, even though it didn’t need a converter. We decided they would all go ahead and the driver could come back in ten minutes for Thanna and a few other people who were running late. I said I didn’t think I could be ready in ten minutes, or at least I tried to say so. I’m not good at words when I first wake up. They were planning to come back to the hotel at noon for lunch anyway, so it would be okay to meet up with them then and only miss ESDG information session.

            Somewhere along the way that time got mistranslated. It could very well be my fault, but apparently they were planning to come at one, not eleven. When no one showed up to get me I started to panic. It suddenly hit me that I was hungry, confused and alone in a foreign country that spoke languages I didn’t know. And I panicked. I did not know where my metaphorical towel was. I thought we had Mediha’s phone number, but it wasn’t in our packets or on the CIEE website. The lady at the front desk hardly spoke English, but she could tell how worried I was and dropped whatever she was doing to help me contact Mediha. We finally got a hold of her. She calmed me down and told me where I could buy a snack and we figured out where and when we’d meet. They guy running the shop where I bought my yogurt was just as patient with me when I mangled my French. He insisted I would do better after I’d been in the country for more than a day. I wasn’t sure then and I’m still not, but it helped.

            I don’t know who’s at fault, but I realized that it didn’t matter who said what. I’m twenty years old now and I need to be prepared to take care of this kind of thing. I needed to be responsible and get contact information as soon as I met the people in charge. I should have studied vocabulary for asking for help. Basically, I need to keep track of my own towel instead of counting on other people to remember it for me. So I sat there on the hotel terrace, eating my yogurt and had this JD (character from Scrubs) style inner monologue that summed up the whole incident and taught me a Very Important Lesson.

            Terraces are good for these kinds of revelations. I’m one of only two people in the group who have never traveled abroad. Most of them have been all over the world, often alone or for extended periods of time. I’ve been to New York and Puerto Rico and that’s as far as I’ve gone. I’m the Arthur Dent of Morocco; I don’t always know what’s going on, I’m the furthest thing from savvy, I’m a little befuddled by the details and sometimes all I really want is a nice cup of tea. Arthur, in case you haven’t read The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, possesses two traits that keep him from losing his mind and tossing himself out of the nearest airlock. He doesn’t panic (as per The Guide’s recommendation) and he learns from his mistakes, even though he never stops making them. So that’s how I’m going to be.

            As Blanche DuBois taught me, it’s that depending on the kindness of strangers doesn’t always work. (And that guys named Stanley can be hot when played by a young Brando.) I’ve been lucky so far because every Moroccan I’ve met has been extremely nice. I accidentally paid for six Dirham (pronounced deer-rhem, equal to about .75 USD) bottle of water with six Euros, which are worth a lot more. The guy working at the shop could have ripped me off by taking the Euros, but instead he helped me sort my coins and pay him the original price. It’s stuff like this that I’m prepared to fail at, and people like him who make all of the trouble worthwhile.

            This is a pretty long post, so I’m saving the Moroccan ninja story and my photos of the medina, Oudaya and the ruins of Chellah for later. My camera died during the day so I have to get some other people’s pictures first.