In Morocco, I measure my successes by kilometres travelled and items purchased. To get anywhere, and buy anything, is pretty much always an ordeal in one way or another. And my own fears have prevented me from accomplishing either of these tasks independently for far too long.
Fear of what, you ask? Pickpockets? Lewd men? Crooked taxi drivers? Corrupt policemen? I was warned about all of these, but not nearly as emphatically as I was warned about that most notorious of North African villains: the Moroccan Driver.
“They’re crazy!” said everyone. “They don’t follow any rules! They honk their horns and wave their arms for no good reason! They never give you the right of way, and they’re always so impatient!”
My observations from the passenger seat of others’ vehicles have largely corroborated these generalizations, and I therefore felt no compulsion whatsoever to sit behind the wheel – until I got sick and tired of going nowhere and buying nothing.
And then I decided that enough was enough. “Today’s the day,” I decreed impulsively. “I am going to drive, all by myself, to the Morocco Mall. I am going to park the car there, and enter the mall, and shop. I will skip the stores that bore me, and spend as long as I like in the stores that interest me. I will buy or not buy, as I see fit, because I am in control.” And off I went.
Lest you think I was completely unprepared for this quest, I will confess that I worked up to it in increments over the last month. I took lessons in driving a stick shift while I was still in Canada. When I got to Casa, I signed out the school vehicle every few days and practiced driving around the parking lot and the outback around the campus. I got up at 7:30 a.m. on a Sunday and practiced going round and round the roundabouts on the empty highway. And a few brave and patient souls sat in the passenger seat to cheer me on when I was ready to contend with real, live traffic.
But today was different. Today was my first solo run into the city, and I braced myself for the ire of the fiendish drivers all around me. I would undoubtedly make many, many enemies today, and perhaps be deported.
Morocco, however, surprised me. The only blaring horn was my own, to warn the oncoming driver that I had accidentally entered his lane and couldn’t figure out how to get out. Did he honk back? No. Did he gesture? No. Did he even stop? No, not for a second. He simply drove over the mini-median and went around me. Didn’t think a thing of it. I eventually found my way into my own lane, no harm done. Well. That was easy.
Moments later, I found myself following another car the wrong way into the exit to the underground parking. Did anyone honk at either of us? Nope. Not once. I reversed, he reversed, we all reversed in various creative ways, and no one blinked an eye. What’s the rush? No rush at all. Everything’s just fine.
Same thing with the inevitable parking panic. There were cars on all sides of me, waiting for me to maneuver out of a spot that seemed to shrink every time I moved. Did they gesticulate and say mean things? Nope. They patiently and lovingly guided me out of the parking spot, beeping their horns ever so gently only when I found myself unexpectedly coasting down an invisible hill. When I stalled at the exit, the guy in the parking booth smiled and calmly pointed to the errant shift knob; and when I stalled in the roundabout on the way back to the school, I just started ‘er up and kept on going. No one minded. No one cared. No one thought twice of it. In fact, I think they thought it was cute.
So there you have it. I drove to the mall. I shopped for two hours. I bought chocolate milk, granola, two t-shirts, two alarm clocks, a soap dish, a bag of croissants, and an electric kettle. And I can do it again, whenever I want, because I am now the bad boy of Casablanca’s streets: I am a Moroccan Driver.
You, too, can turn to organized automotive villainy. Check out this video for your own personalized instructions:
https://youtu.be/0frwti04ItQ
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