There was almost no line to get through Moroccan passport control. I had an hour before boarding my outbound flight. Easy. It might take a while to get into a country. I knew that, but leaving? That's quick … everywhere I'd been anyway. Maybe I should turn back and hang out with my new German friends in the airport coffee shop.
I tend to be a touch pessimistic, so I joined the short line, breezing past a customs spot check station. It stalled just as I stepped in. A middle-aged German raised his voice and his arms.
The Moroccan official spoke quietly, pointed outside the security barrier, and dropped his head to the computer inside the little glass cubicle. Case closed. Go. The tourist went.
"Was ist los?" What's up? I asked the couple in front of me. No immigration form, she said. Immigration form?! You need one leaving? Oh, ^%$! I thought as I glanced back toward the security point and the rapidly growing line where the now focused customs official was searching hand baggage.
The exasperated German without the form edged out looking for whatever office has the forms he needed. I stayed put. They can't mean me. My turn. They meant me ...
I raised my eyebrows – not my voice – in helplessness. He raised his arm; his head began to drop to the screen. I tried, "Mais, vous n'avez pas de …?" You don't have any …? I asked, pointing to a stack of cards on the edge of his desk. He blinked, huffed, irritated, but shuffled through the stack I pointed to. And found a blank form.
"Which flight are you on?" he asked in French. Then another grunt, a raised finger, and instructions to complete the form in place and break back in line when I was finished.
I could feel the growing line behind me, eyes boring into my back. There was annoyance there. Germans get annoyed at those who block their space – a sort of no-speed-limit-autobahn mentality that applies to all facets of life.
But it wasn't just that I sensed. They were shocked … amazed that I wasn't sent out in short order like their countryman before me.
Now it's not that I'm a cute little girl with ample bronzed cleavage or someone with a name and position. Middle-aged, rumpled after days on a cross-country bus, and puffy with allergies that had kicked off again in the oases, it wasn't my charm that got me by.
It was a handful of French 101 words that caught his attention. I communicated. I opened a door that English and German wouldn't have.
And I stepped through, glancing back again as the lines outside the barrier – the expelled German presumably in there somewhere – snaked down the corridor. I thought about my German friends in the coffee shop and hoped they had their forms. They didn't speak French, I knew. But the daughter was cute …
"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 (very) simple French, the second language of Morocco , 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. Eyes that initially sent messages of wariness or vulpine calculation softened when I spoke French, when they realized they could talk to me and I would understand.
And the Germans – most of whom had been to the States and could communicate in basic English – were thrilled to stick to German with me. They sought me out, seemingly taking turns to approach me, questioning me about American customs and attitudes they found odd.
I spoke their language. I could be trusted. And I could ask the local people questions for them, intercede with the bus driver, and order mint tea without a pound of sugar in it. I could communicate.
Cleavage and money do convey power. Short-lived and perhaps insincere, I suspect (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's a link that 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.
N'est-ce pas?!
Photo Credits: On a Donkey in the Desert by Karen Kindler
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