Herding Cats

In December 2011, my son Paul, my grandson Calvert, and I drove from Stuttgart, Germany to Frankfurt to catch a plane to Morocco. We were flying on Ryan Air and when we arrived at the gate, I got a lesson in airport etiquette (at least on this airline). For example, a line had started to form at our departure gate, but we soon realized that being in line didn’t do much good because as soon as the line began moving, passengers started butting in front of you. Apparently this was an accepted custom, as no one from the airline said or did anything about it.


I remember thinking that this must be what it is like to herd cats. Everyone had their own mindset, their own interests, their own priorities, and they went wherever they wanted. I was surprised that someone didn’t throw a punch or yell or complain. I guess the semi-organized chaos was a cultural thing where the  people have learned to just go with the flow. 


As we approached the boarding gate, we were required to insert our luggage into a solid metal box which indicated whether the luggage was a suitable size to be carried on. An airline attendant was right there monitoring this process and insisting that any luggage that didn’t meet the size requirement would need to be checked, for a fee, of course. 


I watched one young man try to put his bag in this box, but he couldn’t make it fit. He was with an older man, perhaps his father or grandfather, and the next thing I saw was this older gentleman grab the bag from the boy and start shoving and pushing it into the testing container. He couldn’t get it in either. His impatience started to show as he turned the bag upside down and angrily continued pushing and shoving it, trying to force it in. Finally, after several minutes of frustration he was successful and a satisfied smile started to creep across his face. The last thing I saw as I looked back while walking onto the plane was Grandpa working harder than ever trying to pull out the bag so he and his family could board the plane. 


We landed in Rabat, Morocco at 11:15 p.m. As soon as the plane touched the ground there was a spontaneous eruption of clapping and cheering from the passengers, grateful for reaching their destination alive.


When I heard all this cheering and clapping, I started to worry about what the locals knew about Ryan Air that I didn’t know. I asked myself why we didn’t pay a little extra to fly on another airline. I wondered why people would go so crazy just because we landed safely? At that point I resolved that before I flew back to Germany, I would research the safety record of this airline. After all, I was too young to take chances. 


However, all ended well, and this trip turned out to be a great experience with my son and grandson. We rented a car and traveled to the hotel where we had reservations. It was a beautiful hotel some 600 or 700 years old located in Medina, which is the ‘old city’ in Fez.


Medina was founded in the 808 A.D. It is just 15 square kilometers in size, with 72,000 businesses. Merchants are still doing business like they did more than one thousand years ago. There are 25,000 buildings with 350,000 residents, plus the 75,000 tourists who enter the city each day. It was not uncommon to see merchandise delivered on the back of a donkey, live chickens being sold in the butcher shop, and people asking the butcher to cut off the chickens’ heads after purchase.


After being in Morocco for several days, we flew back to Germany on Ryan Airlines and joined in with the cheering and clapping to celebrate our safe arrival. 


The thing I learned from this trip is that people all over the world are wonderful. They are trying to make a living to support their family, and while they have different challenges than we do, we share many of the same basic goals in life. I also realized that there are friendly people wherever we go and if we put forth an effort to make friends, they will enjoy our visit and even laugh and do a friendly tease in return. This kind of connection is so rewarding. Creating a bond of friendship is not difficult. We can make others smile and laugh and be themselves, we can learn from them no matter the circumstances. All it takes is for us to step out of our comfort zone and be a friend. 


As parents we can help our children learn to appreciate the blessings of friendship and encourage them to step out of their comfort zone and take a chance to interact with someone they may not have interacted with before. As fellow human beings on this planet, we have so much more in common than our superficial differences.



Happy Failing Forward,