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.
Showing posts with label communication. Show all posts
Showing posts with label communication. Show all posts
13 February 2012
Rough start
Last Monday was a "little" eid, and T had the day off from teaching. Weeks before, we had decided that we wanted to go to Melilla or Ceuta for the long weekend. We asked our friends Sarah and Terry if they wanted to rent a car and go with us. We decided we would go to Ceuta since none of us had spent much time there before.
For a full week, I could think of almost nothing else. I was desperate to get out of Morocco at the same time that I had a very fuzzy sense of why or of what I wanted to do in Ceuta.
And so, as is too often the case when we want something very badly, it seemed that the forces of the universe were conspiring against our planned European getaway.
First, Sarah and Terry spent the entire week leading up to our trip making phone calls to a car rental agency, and each time, the exchange went something like this:
This went on over and over again until Thursday night (the night before we were scheduled to leave) when our friends enlisted the help of a Moroccan friend, who finally lined up a car for us – at twice the price it should've been. At about 7:00 that night, then, we were desperately calling other car rental agencies to try to get ourselves a better deal.
We found a car at a better price, but the company required a 20,000 dirham deposit (that's "only" about $2500, an obscene amount of money here in Morocco that none of us would be able to get our hands on with such short notice).
About an hour later, we got in touch with a car rental company in Azrou (about 20 km away) that was willing to rent us a Kia Picanto for a good price. They even said they would deliver it to us here in Ifrane for a reasonable delivery fee.
It was a little stressful not knowing less than 24 hours before we were leaving how we would get to Ceuta, but I thought things were okay.
For a full week, I could think of almost nothing else. I was desperate to get out of Morocco at the same time that I had a very fuzzy sense of why or of what I wanted to do in Ceuta.
And so, as is too often the case when we want something very badly, it seemed that the forces of the universe were conspiring against our planned European getaway.
First, Sarah and Terry spent the entire week leading up to our trip making phone calls to a car rental agency, and each time, the exchange went something like this:
Terry: "We want to rent a car for Friday."
Car rental representative: "Okay, we'll call you back in 10 minutes."
(Sarah and Terry wait a few hours, then call the agency back.)
Terry: "We want to rent a car for Friday."
Car rental representative: "Okay, we'll call you back in 10 minutes."
This went on over and over again until Thursday night (the night before we were scheduled to leave) when our friends enlisted the help of a Moroccan friend, who finally lined up a car for us – at twice the price it should've been. At about 7:00 that night, then, we were desperately calling other car rental agencies to try to get ourselves a better deal.
We found a car at a better price, but the company required a 20,000 dirham deposit (that's "only" about $2500, an obscene amount of money here in Morocco that none of us would be able to get our hands on with such short notice).
About an hour later, we got in touch with a car rental company in Azrou (about 20 km away) that was willing to rent us a Kia Picanto for a good price. They even said they would deliver it to us here in Ifrane for a reasonable delivery fee.
It was a little stressful not knowing less than 24 hours before we were leaving how we would get to Ceuta, but I thought things were okay.
07 January 2012
Fondue, glass pickles, fire bowls, and other German things
During my senior year of high school, I was friends with a German exchange student, AC. After that year, I always thought it would be neat to visit him in Germany. This was a casual wish, though, with Germany on a long list of other places I "wanted" to visit, including Australia, India, and Hawaii. I don't think I ever really thought it would be possible for me to visit him, and I never had a strong sense of why I wanted to go to Germany or what I would even do there.
That was until I moved to Morocco. Now Frankfurt is just a 3 1/2 hour plane ride away (plus a couple of hours in a car). So at the end of December, T and I finally visited my friend AC in Rosbach, Germany. We spent close to a week with him and his wife IC and their two young children MC (boy) and MC (girl).
One of the great things about staying with a German family is that we got to learn some details of German culture we may not have been aware of otherwise. For example, because they took us to a New Year's Eve party with several of their friends, I now know that fondue is a fairly common New Year's Eve meal. It also seems that virtually everyone in the entire country sets off fireworks at midnight– a lot of fireworks. And while I thought staying at a New Year's Eve party until 3:00 AM was quite late, when we said good-bye at that time, we were the first ones to leave the party – probably because AC and IC's little girl had refused to be cared for by her grandparents and ended up accompanying us and thus needed to get home at a "reasonable" time. (Don't worry, she slept for a good portion of the party.)
Another wonderful thing about visiting Germany (for English-speaking people, anyway) is that many Germans, especially those in the younger generations, are very comfortable with English and can easily switch back and forth between it and German. Virtually everyone at the New Year's Eve party knew English. At first, though, people seemed reluctant to speak to us, perhaps because we were strangers and because everyone (I think) is more comfortable speaking in his or her native language. As the night went on, though, more people were kind enough to talk to us. They were surprised to learn that we were not visiting from America, so the topic of how one ends up living in Morocco helped keep up the conversation.
It also helped when my friend AC broke out the PlayStation game SingStar. By the end of the night, even I had come out of my shell, and I was belting out Abba songs with IC as my teammate. Champagne seemed to loosen peoples tongues, and almost everyone was making comments about the game using English for our benefit.
That was until I moved to Morocco. Now Frankfurt is just a 3 1/2 hour plane ride away (plus a couple of hours in a car). So at the end of December, T and I finally visited my friend AC in Rosbach, Germany. We spent close to a week with him and his wife IC and their two young children MC (boy) and MC (girl).
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| MC is just about ready to go to bed. |
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| SingStar fun |
It also helped when my friend AC broke out the PlayStation game SingStar. By the end of the night, even I had come out of my shell, and I was belting out Abba songs with IC as my teammate. Champagne seemed to loosen peoples tongues, and almost everyone was making comments about the game using English for our benefit.
21 December 2011
Things they didn't tell me
In making our decision to move overseas, in our usual fashion, T and I (i.e. T) did a lot of research. He researched the places where we might live, and he found books on the various aspects, from financial to psychological, to making an international move. We even got to talk to someone who worked at this University for five years. We didn't feel completely prepared when we moved here, but we certainly felt more prepared than some.
However, there are still things I wish someone had told me. Or maybe someone did tell these things to me, but I wish they had been emphasized more.
At the top of my list of things they didn't tell me is the absolute truth that some people, after moving to a new country, will get sick, and they will never really get better, at least not as long as they stay in that country. I don't know why this happens. I have many friends, for example, who came to Morocco and started drinking the tap water and eating street food right away and never had a day of travelers' diarrhea. More common, I think, is an adjustment period of the body that ranges from a week to a few months, during which time the individual is more susceptible to all kinds of bacteria and viruses, but after which that person is basically okay.
Then there are those unlucky few who are constantly coming down with a wide range of diagnosable and undiagnosable ailments that affect a wide range of parts and systems of the body. I seem to be one of these unlucky few. This is something I have tried to avoid blogging about because it is essentially "negative," but the truth is it has also become a large part of my experience living in a foreign country for the first time.
Even minor health problems can be complicated in a foreign country, as I'm sure you can imagine. If one has moved from a developed country to an undeveloped or developing one, the quality of medical care will seem subpar. In fact, while I was very reluctant to go to doctors while living in the United States, I have made a fairly firm decision not to visit a doctor (or especially a hospital) here unless I am already in danger of dying – in case they kill me, of course. For people like me who like "be their own doctors," there is the issue of not knowing what sorts of medications and treatments are available. I have lived in Morocco for 16 months and I'm still learning what is and is not available. There is the additional complication of not always knowing what the real problem is that one is trying to treat.
The biggest problem of all, of course, is communication. Think about the last time you went to visit a doctor. Did the doctor understand you? Did you understand everything the doctor said? I think there's a high chance that you will answer at least one of these questions with "no." But if you had to communicate with the doctor in a language with which one of you was uncomfortable…well, imagine the opportunities for miscommunications and misunderstandings.
I don't know what the solution is for those of us in this small and unfortunate minority. I know I'm not the only person going through this, but at the same time it's not that comforting to know there are other people who, like me, haven't seemed to figure out how to be well in a foreign country.
However, there are still things I wish someone had told me. Or maybe someone did tell these things to me, but I wish they had been emphasized more.
At the top of my list of things they didn't tell me is the absolute truth that some people, after moving to a new country, will get sick, and they will never really get better, at least not as long as they stay in that country. I don't know why this happens. I have many friends, for example, who came to Morocco and started drinking the tap water and eating street food right away and never had a day of travelers' diarrhea. More common, I think, is an adjustment period of the body that ranges from a week to a few months, during which time the individual is more susceptible to all kinds of bacteria and viruses, but after which that person is basically okay.
Then there are those unlucky few who are constantly coming down with a wide range of diagnosable and undiagnosable ailments that affect a wide range of parts and systems of the body. I seem to be one of these unlucky few. This is something I have tried to avoid blogging about because it is essentially "negative," but the truth is it has also become a large part of my experience living in a foreign country for the first time.
Even minor health problems can be complicated in a foreign country, as I'm sure you can imagine. If one has moved from a developed country to an undeveloped or developing one, the quality of medical care will seem subpar. In fact, while I was very reluctant to go to doctors while living in the United States, I have made a fairly firm decision not to visit a doctor (or especially a hospital) here unless I am already in danger of dying – in case they kill me, of course. For people like me who like "be their own doctors," there is the issue of not knowing what sorts of medications and treatments are available. I have lived in Morocco for 16 months and I'm still learning what is and is not available. There is the additional complication of not always knowing what the real problem is that one is trying to treat.
The biggest problem of all, of course, is communication. Think about the last time you went to visit a doctor. Did the doctor understand you? Did you understand everything the doctor said? I think there's a high chance that you will answer at least one of these questions with "no." But if you had to communicate with the doctor in a language with which one of you was uncomfortable…well, imagine the opportunities for miscommunications and misunderstandings.
I don't know what the solution is for those of us in this small and unfortunate minority. I know I'm not the only person going through this, but at the same time it's not that comforting to know there are other people who, like me, haven't seemed to figure out how to be well in a foreign country.
10 October 2011
Skypefest 2011
If you've ever lived far away from home, particularly in another country, you probably know how touching and important it can be to get the occasional unexpected letter, email, phone call, or Skype call from a friend or family member. For me, this past week has been marked by such unexpected communications, and it has helped me start my Monday morning feeling connected and grounded.
That's a good thing, because I think next week is midterm week, which means lots of grading for T and studying for me. I guess I'd better get to work...
That's a good thing, because I think next week is midterm week, which means lots of grading for T and studying for me. I guess I'd better get to work...
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