Mosque House

We’ve done some more sporadic house hunting over the last few days, and we’ve now looked at about 15 places. We generally set off after lunch during the mid-day siesta. The reason for this odd timing is that people tend to be at home then, so it’s easy to get into the riads; the bizarre element is that we’ve been touring homes with people sprawled out asleep in all of the bedrooms. Occasionally they just go on sleeping through our visit, and occasionally they wake up and give us a groggy “bonjour.” Samuel peeked his head inside one salon the other day only to give one woman a fright. She scrambled to put on her headscarf and when she couldn’t get it straight, pulled it back off her head and gave Samuel a conspiratorial smile as if to say, “Okay, you’re just some foreigner, and do I really care if you see my head for a minute? Not today and not when I’m this hot and tired.”

Last night, we returned from dinner at a pretty place in the Medina called Marrakechi that overlooks the El Fna square (it’s a tourist spot, but with spectacular zellig – traditional tilework – and very tasty food) and were chatting with Hammoud about the day when he informed us that he’d put in an offer on the front-runner riad, one situated near a mosque in the northern half of the Medina. You can imagine our shock on so many levels. One, that he’d put in an offer without talking to us about either making an offer, or the price we might be comfortable paying. Two, that he’d made such a low-ball offer ($40K less than asking). And three, that we already had a counter offer from the owner. I’m sure there are four, five and six, but needless to say, we were a bit confounded. And also a bit giddy at the prospect.


A quick note on the riad in question. It’s got a few things going for it, including that only one fellow owns the house, which is a huge coup. In Morocco, homes frequently are inherited by four or five siblings and in order for a sale to go through, all of the siblings have to sign off on the title change, etc. We’ve heard horror stories about someone buying a place only to have some long-lost half-sister come demanding her portion of the house years after the assumed closing. Another factor, which Hammoud has billed as a plus and we are trying to weigh, is the riad’s location directly adjacent to a mosque. (Note: In the photo above, the entrance to the house is the door on the left with the white framing; mosque is directly beside it.) Keep in mind that the call to prayer on a loudspeaker happens 5 times a day, the first around 4:30 a.m. Sure we got used to sirens in NY and circling helicopters in LA, but I don’t want to have to take to sleeping with Bose sound-canceling headphones every night. Might be a fun ad, though.