Just another blog post about how I often don't understand what's going on

My part-time teaching job ended in April, and earlier this week my boss sent me an e-mail saying that she had used MoneyGram (money transfer) to send my pay for April and that I just needed to go to the office, located downtown, to get it.

I think I audibly groaned. While the prospect of dealing with this didn't send me into a panic as it may have a year or year and a half ago, I knew it wasn't going to be as easy as she made it sound. And yet it didn't end up being as hard as I had imagined it could be.

One reason I get apprehensive about these things is that, especially in "office" situations (e.g. the bank, a doctor's office, or the post office), I just don't understand what's going on. There are always lots of people sitting and waiting for something, and a few people standing around waiting for something, and a few people sitting behind the desk or counter, but whereas I would know what to do if I saw this in the United States, I still don't understand the system here in Morocco; I just know that it's different. This is not a "queuing" culture, so I know that even if something looks like a line, my best move isn't always to go stand in it.

Here's where I lucked out, because one of the staff members of the building where I live happened to be in the post office (which is where I went because it was the first place I noticed with a "MoneyGram" sign outside), and he told the woman whose job it is to coordinate the customers what it was that I needed. So I sat and waited for 15 to 20 minutes, which is not so long of a wait in Morocco but long enough to make me wish my boss had just deposited the money in my bank account.

In some way mysterious to me, the woman then decided it was my turn to go up to the counter, and I showed the woman behind the counter the number my boss had given me. It was obvious that this number did not look right, and she conveyed to me that I was in the wrong location and that I needed to go someplace called "Wafa Cash" that was somewhere near Banque Populaire.

I wandered around town a little bit and noticed several other MoneyGram signs but no place that said "Wafa Cash." I called my boss, but she didn't know specifically where I needed to go to get the money, so then I had to text the other teacher she had hired to find out if he knew where I needed to go.

At this point, I think I had spent close to 45 minutes trying to get my money. Luckily, I got good instructions from the other teacher and found the right MoneyGram office. (It had a variety of signs outside, including one that said "MoneyGram" and "EuroSol," but of course there was nothing that said "Wafa Cash." That sort of thing, however, is common in small towns and is not particular to Morocco.) There was no line of people inside the small office, but I still had to wait a good five or 10 minutes while the man behind the counter typed on his computer, filled out forms, and photocopied my national identity card.

In the end, it only took me about an hour to get my pay from April. It could've been a lot worse.