Mul Bazaar, Part II

So my faithful readers (aka just my mom) will remember my entry about trying to exchange dirhams for euros before my trip to Italy. Since that incident, everything with the mul bazaar has been uneventful at the money exchange hanut.

While sorting through my things today, I found 2,000DH that I must have hidden for emergencies ages ago. This week, I just balanced my Moroccan checking account and budgeted for the rest of my service here (still don't have a countdown), so I debated between treating myself to another shopping spree, investing the money into Fatiha's project, or converting the money into dollars.

PC is giving me $83 to check in my second bag twice and buy food at the Casablanca, Frankfurt, San Francisco, and Honolulu airports (on flights where meals are for purchase), so I decided to chance my luck and return to the mul bazaar.

The men there remembered me and, surprisingly, warmly welcomed me. I was told that the official exchange rate was around 8.58 dirhams to the dollar, but the men would be happy to give me the black market rate of 8.3 dirhams to the dollar if I just waited until the afternoon. I asked if I could get my passport stamped this time, and the mul bazaar said only if I take the official rate. Because I hoped to fill my passport with stamps (only have a few pages left!) and felt really bad about my amazing discount the last time, I requested the official rate. He told me to come back in the afternoon. ...um...ok.

So, I returned later to find out that the men still didn't have the key to the safe. I waited for a bit until the old man (see first mul bazaar story) returned with the key. Once the safe was open, the men had only a $100 bill and five one dollar bills.

God was sending me a sign to go shopping instead! I asked how many dirhams was the $100 bill worth. The mul bazaar said, "800." We traded. Sadly, no passport was stamped. He then told me the bill was town in two and taped together. I didn't even notice nor did I think that would be a problem, so he gave me a dollar for free. Then another dollar, then another, and so on until I had $5 extra.

I told the mul bazaar that this $5 was equivalent to more than 40DH and started to list off how many things I could buy with that amount. He laughed and said, "No problem." I asked to buy the $5 from him, but my offer was refused. The men told me that they won't restock dollars because everyone in town trades in euros. While waiting for the key to arrive, I witnessed many women trade dirhams for euros and vice versa. One woman had 20,000DH to trade; another had 300euros to trade. I felt pretty miskina.

So, I went to my friend's hanut to buy a rug that I've been eying my whole service. I have never come across another rug like it in all of the many souks and medinas I've visited. Unfortunately, she already sold that rug.

Moral of the story: sometimes you snooze you lose (ie with the rug), and sometimes you snooze you win (ie with the leftover dollars). I will pass on my 5 dollar bills to other people in town. Easy come, easy go (moral #2).

In other "financial" news, I finally got a straight answer on how much money exactly is a "milliar." It's one billion ryals, or 50,000,000 dirhams, or about 5 million euros. According to town gossip, there are about 9 people who are milliar-ers in Btown. Perhaps the woman with the 20,000DH was one?

In "Kat" news, I realize that I type my blogs in simple language, as if I wanted to translate this story into Darija. I hope my advanced high school vocabulary comes back to me once I'm in America LATER THIS MONTH!


Disclaimer: THIS IS NOT MY MONEY! I am still miskina. It's the grant money I withdrew from my account for one of the Marche Maroc craft fairs.