The GCW Tour, Spain & Morocco: The Requisite "Cheery" (Warning: Irony) Post

Still no sign yet of Marrakech, and there's only so much scrub you can watch go by, so I thought I'd pass on what I've learned about death and dying in Spain & Morocco.

Spain

Barcelona's major cemetery

As a developed nation in the EU, there's not much unique about Spain. Our tapas guide -- and who would you go to for information about dying beyond your tapas guide? -- told me that Spain had invested heavily in health care and nursing homes and the like in the 1990s, but with the economic crash in the oughts health care went by the wayside. At this point in time there were long wait lists for access to facilities, and folks were adapting as best they could.

In fact, at one point in Sevilla we saw a panhandler with a sign reading, "I'm sick with leukemia..."

So, not too much to distinguish Spain from anywhere else.

Morocco

Each of the rectangles is someone's tomb

Morocco, on the other hand, has three distinguishing characteristics: first, it's a developing country; second, it has huge gaps in wealth; and third, it's predominantly Muslim.

As a result, access to healthcare is wildly dependent on wealth. Most Moroccans care for the sick or dying at home. They do have hospitals -- we saw one recently built hospital solely for cancer patients -- but most can't afford them. Moreover, the biggest problem isn't access to doctors, but medications and treatment technologies. Islam places a high priority on charity and caring for the poor, so doctors willing to treat someone for nothing, or next to nothing, aren't hard to come by. But drugs are expensive, so those are hard to get.

As for dying, apparently Islam is not big on cremation, so the dead in Morocco are almost universally buried. Our guide told me you can tell how old a city or village is by how big its cemetery is. Our tour of the little village near Tangier included one site with lots of tombs.

So all in all, I'm not sure I'll be leaving America's healthcare system for that of Spain or Morocco.