The last four months in Morocco have been amazing, filled with tons of experiences and travel as well as meeting amazing people. It is a amazing country filled with kind people and beautiful nature. Its also very different than the United States. This difference lead to many experiences.
One negative experience I had was the way forming lines is treated in Morocco. When I first arrived at the airport in Casablanca while waiting to get my passport checked six or seven people cut me in line. During my orientation at the school it was explained to me that the idea of forming lines is not really a thing in Morocco. On campus this became extremely obvious as anywhere you would expect a line instead was just a group of people all bunched together in a group. It did not matter the order you arrived only the order in which you are able to get to the counter. Sometimes lines will form but people will still jump in front.
I disliked this lack of lines. While in the start it was easy to brush off, the more it happened the more annoying it got. It also was irritating that they did this without apologizing and would sometimes even get upset if you asked them not too. To me it felt super unorganized and was was very frustrating. However looking at it from the perspective of a Moroccan I could understand it a lot better. There is a much more relaxed feeling. In Morocco no one is in a rush and everyone is quite laid back the idea of lines isn’t really necessary. Instead when you want to you can just go to the front if you need to otherwise you will just go when you go. While talking to a Moroccan they asked how I could stand in lines they expressed that to them the US feels very strict and they did not enjoy it.
Having this other perspective really allowed me to reflect on the culture of the US in a way I haven’t before. For example looking at the work culture in the United States it pushes you to work as much as you can and keep working so you can make more money, Moroccans will work only as much as they need to support themselves and spend the extra time with family or doing things they like to do, a much more laid back culture. This experience really prepares me for a multicultural world as it showed that the culture I grew up in is confusing to other people as well and something as simple as lines can reflect the priorities of a culture. A line is such a simple thing but can tell you so much about a culture.
