Here's Looking At You, Yid

Casablanca, Morocco. The elevator slows, comes to a stop, and the doors slide open. Our escort leads us down a long, poorly lit corridor. It is painted a dull, drab, beige and is completely silent, empty. The only sound is our feet as we walk, each step echoing lightly. We pass no one in the dusky hall, but this is not particularly surprising given the late hour. Our escort leads us around a corner and through a large door. The room is cavernous, bare, the walls completely unadorned. Not all of the bulbs are lit and much of the room is dim. Long windows grace the outermost wall, but they are tinted, and nothing but a few pale points of light filter through. A few old computers sit atop basic desks, though no one is at the keyboards. There is too much space and not enough to fill it. It feels abandoned, cold, lifeless. There are two men at the far end of the room, tapping away at one of the computers and talking in Arabic. Our escort leads us over and we are told to sit in a set of folding chairs behind them. A rapid exchange takes place between the three, then the escort leaves. As he walks away my eyes follow his weapon, a snub-nosed, semi-automatic machine gun. As the two officers swivel in their chairs to face us, I have to wonder: How in the world have we wound up here, on the fourth floor of the massive Casablanca police headquarters in the middle of the night?


Let me explain. A few days ago we were killing time in Rabat. We were supposed to be in Casablanca getting visas for Mauritania, but it was Friday and the embassy was closed for the weekend. Figuring it was better to explore than continue to sit in one place - unlike that month I spent at home playing video games until my eyes started to bleed - we set our sights on the capitol, though we heard it was a rather characterless place. Rabat was not nearly as dull as I had presumed. In fact, it has both the frenetic energy and motion of a motor rally. The motorized carriages that Moroccans have dubbed CARS (Camels Are Really Slow) race through the street at break neck speed - as do motorcycles, mopeds, bicycles, and thousands of pedestrians. Truly the most fun you can have in Rabat is dodging traffic. Even the most major of intersections have no crosswalks, nor crossing lights of any kind. To make matters worse, the traffic lights themselves are no where to be seen. For the life of us we could not figure out how traffic knew to stop; perhaps a sudden realization that even the most standard of vehicles come with brakes plays a roll. Regardless, the best way we found to cross a busy intersection was by carefully listening to the sounds of the road. If you hear a loud thumping noise, for example, you know that your body was just hit by a car. This means that you shouldn't have tried to cross at that particular moment. Wait a few minutes, and if you can drag your battered body back to the sidewalk, try again. Unfortunately this method gets progressively more difficult. Better to watch what the locals do, I suppose. The pedestrians of Rabat have developed a fiendishly clever way of counteracting this particular menace. It is quite amazing, really. First, people slowly begin to mass at a point on the sidewalk. Like a malignant tumor they grow, rapidly expanding, until - with no audible or visible communication whatsoever - they all step into oncoming traffic at once. The traffic has no choice but to stop or plow into everyone, risking not only extensive damage to their car but a significant increase in their monthly insurance payment. It is a sight to see.
On Sunday night we headed to Casablanca. The name itself evokes strong images of romance and intrigue. In my opinion nothing could be further from the truth; unless you find Hilton hotels intriguing or skyscrapers get your pulse pounding. Still, we had a great time. Casablanca has one thing that all the other cities in Morocco lack - namely, bars. The Islamic religion prohibits the imbibing of devilish liquors like BudLight and Zima, so heretical pubs are few and far between. These have been tough times for us. Those who know my travelling buddy Xander are aware that without a constant supply of liquor he slowly devolves into a thoughtful, well-spoken, intellectual. It's quite scary, really, but we seemed to have dodged that particular bullet.
Early Monday morning we dropped off our passports at the embassy, hoping to have them back by mid afternoon, as our guidebook said. Unfortunately the bureaucrats at the embassy had a better idea - not giving them back until 10am the next morning. Though we were a little disappointed to have to stay another night, we certainly made the most of it. As we hopped from bar to bar we met some fascinating locals. At one joint we met a drunk-as-a-skunk magistrate. Speaking slowly, with a thick Moroccan accent, his words slightly slurred, he gave us a surprisingly cogent civics lesson. He asked what we had done to defend our civil liberties since the institution of the Patriot Act. I could only shrug, surprised that a Moroccan judge could be so passionate about the outcome of a New England football game. This seemed to upset him. With each word getting louder he said "You...are all...contr'lled...by...da MED-IAH". Unfortunately I wasn't paying much attention, an old Pepsi ad was replaying in my head. He repeated it again, this time much louder, a few people turning their heads. I felt...well, I felt like Chicken Tonight, Chicken Tonight! Hmmm, maybe he had a point. I agreed with him, suggesting that I felt the same way about my government and national media that he did. The judge bellowed: "No d'ffrence...between you and govn'ment. No d'ffrence! I can NOT SEPARATE THE TWO". We calmly assured him we did not agree with the current political regime. Once again he barked: "No d'ffrence!". He rotated his chair to face me and - much to my surprise - palmed the front of my skull with one large hand. Spit flew from his mouth as he roared in my face, "YOU BRAIN....IS...WAR!!"
I'm sure you've guessed by now how we ended up at the police station. If you haven't figured it out yet it's because we had left our passports at the Mauritanian Embassy and all hotels require a passport to check in. We had photocopies but these weren't sufficient. When we came back to our hotel in the evening they forced us to get the copies verified by the authorities - which we promptly did, though it was quite late. You didn't actually think I was stupid enough to get into a fistfight with a local judge, did you?