GREETINGS FROM SUNNY MOROCCO!

Psha!

Last night I went out with some friends to a restaurant to celebrate a birthday. We got a nice buzz on and we split up leaving to restaurant to get some taxis and walk someone home. I volunteered to walk with a group of the girls so they wouldn't have to walk alone, and as we were walking down one of the bigger streets, a scooter with three kids rode up and starting making catcalls or something to the girls. They drove past one hopped off, walked towards the group and grabbed one of the girls purses! Being the good american and slightly boozy guy that I was I took off after him and he tried to hop back on the scooter but I was too close. So i chased him down the street and into an intersection where about four cops converged on him, followed by about 5 gendarmes and 7 soldiers (the guy picked probably THE WORST spot to steal a purse, we were 100 ft from the american embassy which has an enormous 24 hour police presence.)
So these cops beat this kid up pretty bad; open palmed slaps, batons to the knees, bloody nose. All of this accompanied by lots of shouting in arabic, that i did not understand, they took me to the side and a few started questioning me, took down my info, birthdate, phone number, fathers name (oldschool), and then some other cops showed up with the group of girls. He also asked me if i'd been drinking! After everybody had gotten their rocks off, there had to have been 14 cops and soldiers there, on of the guys wiped the blood off of the kids face and asked me "You didn't see any aggression did you?" They put the guy in the paddywagon and told the girl she should press charges and that she was to ride to the commisariat (precinct station) and told me that i should accompany her.
Sweet, now we're in the police station which is just beyond description, but i'll try. one fluorescent light over where all of the whores, thieves, and attempted murderers are waiting, and a light bulb on the other side of the desk where they cops are smoking cigarettes like mad and typing police reports on arab typewriters (right to left!) Pressing charges was a huge mistake because the whole process took four hours, four hours at the commisariat...Old fat men getting pushed in through door in handcuffs with a cop yelling, then the cop pulling out a 12 inch kitchen knife that the fat guy apparently threatened someone with, all of the cops behind the desk passing the knife back and forth, yelling, and trying to find a desk drawere to keep the knife in, and things of that nature.
So finally the girl went behind the desk to give her report, the guy pulled out the paper, and 4 carbon copies and went to town on the arab language typewriter. Whoops, he accidentally said the guy had a knife, now he needs to retype the whole thing...okay thats done, now he's typing more of the same thing, on a different paper,and now a different colored form, but again the same thing. Finally one of the cops told us to follow him in the mom's car to the 24 hour judge or something, again more yelling, who is this white guy, and voilà she told him the deal, and we could go. four hours of this.
My favorite parts were probably just the open hand slaps that the cops were giving to everybody; on the back of head, side of the face, etc. That and the two kitchen knives that were some kind of evidence, that were just hanging out, and then when one of the cops was making a report, he wrapped some paper around one and stapled it to the report!
The was also a bald, older man with glasses that was typing and smoking furiously, he had an awesome style of lighting his smokes, sending his left hand out into the air to move his coat cuff out of the way, and then typing like hellfire. He was cool.
So yeah, moral of the story, commisariat in Casablanca is an extra dimension, don't press charges, and don't get arrested in Morocco, you will face a barrage of open palm slaps.

I've been tumbling random stuff at maghrebbin. I figured this deserved a proper blog entry though.