Moroccan Residency Visa Instructions:

1: Take official letter from the Communi-cations Ministry to an agency named DGSN, which no taxi driver seems to understand. Ask a police officer where to find the DGSN only to be told that it isn’t around here, but there is a kind of petite DGSN you can try. 

2: Attempt to enter this place, which is called the police station, to be stopped and told the entrance you need is one block over. Wonder why you weren’t just told to go to the police station.

3: Pass through a metal detector which buzzes but does not prompt the three police officers guarding the door to stop cleaning their teeth with toothpicks.

4. Wonder what’s the point of the metal detector.

5: Speak to two women behind the counter as they eat their lunch. Say you need a residence visa. Wonder if their response, “Why?” is a trick question. Find out they cannot give you the forms until after 2 pm.

6: Try to have six photos taken, per the Moroccan government’s web site. Wait fruitlessly until 2:30pm in front of the photo place for them to open after lunch.

7: Return to the police station to see the same ladies now done with lunch. Get two sets of three forms in duplicate and a list of necessaries: 9 photos, a copy of your lease, two copies of the Communication Ministry letter, copies of your passport, your first baby shoe, your grandparent’s dental records and a lock of hair from your first pet.

8: You cannot bring those things back today. Said documents are accepted only between 9 am and 12 pm. Oh, and you need to go to another government office, across town, and get a stamp. One each. It makes the document official.

9: Wonder exactly how.

10: return to the photo store, wait another 10 minutes until they finally re-open after lunch at 3:30 pm. Ponder photos of the king in a cowboy hat, shooting a high powered hunting rifle.

11: Put off filling out the forms in triplicate until the next morning at 9 am. Become frantic when you realize it’s going to be hard to finish it all before the lunch-time witching hour.

12: Return to police station, set off metal detector, elbow Nigerian man out of your way. Ask if they really want to know every country you’ve ever visited, per the form. Answer: pick 5 or 6, whatever, not a problem. 

13: Remind yourself that this whole process was significantly easier than going to the Manhattan DMV or the Harlem Social Security office.