Two Whiners

There’s been some rumbling that our portrait of life in the Rose City is, well, too rosy and that surely we must have some complaints. To vent, we have two. Heat and bugs.

We mentioned earlier the difficulty of making it through a 113 degree heat. But as heat waves passed across the United States leaving many dead from coast to coast, summer heat seemed pretty universal, and not particularly worth mentioning again. With all respect to those who suffered in the US, there is really no comparison. We have had three months of debilitating heat. This is not a heat wave that comes for a couple of weeks and recedes to an unpleasant memory. This is they type of heat that will cook an egg in Place Jma el Fnaa. Oppressive heat where for day after day, 103 is moderate and it hasn’t dropped below 72 degrees in a month. Here’s a look at the weather the past ten days.



We’re not sure how hundreds of people haven’t succumbed to the heat. The vast majority of Moroccans do not have air-conditioning. It seems simple to say that people here are used to it, but it’s hard to conceive how the human body gets used to such heat. There are days when Caitlin wears thin-soled shoes and her feet start to burn from the heat of the pavement, when Samuel fears his sunglasses are melting on his face. For three days in August there was a “cold snap,” and highs dropped to about 90 degrees. Never, ever, had 90 degrees seemed so pleasant to us. It wasn’t meant to last, and soon it was up another 15 degrees, and has stayed that way since. For us, it means a near constant state of lethargy, and difficulty sleeping. It shapes the way we plan our days in ways we never expected. In the States, we were used to doing what we wanted when we wanted, but that is not an option here. We don’t go to certain parts of town in the middle of the day because we know that to get a taxi back would require waiting for 20 minutes under the scorching sun. It also made us certain to install air-conditioning in our house – something we’ve never needed before.

We’ve both discussed that we’re not interested in spending another summer in Marrakech. Summers in Morocco seem best spent by the ocean, whether in Essouira or another town. And if not for the constant work on Dar Noury, we would likely have made more trips to cooler climes.

Our other bete is, well a bete. Some bug seems to have discovered us, and feasts on us both, leaving us with itchy little welts. There’s been no visual evidence of the little bastards. We haven’t heard mosquitoes buzzing, and we see few insects in general beyond common houseflies. Pharmacists offer a soothing salve, which neither stops nor identifies the offending critter. Our conversations with some fellow expats reveal that we’re not alone in this affliction, though there does seem to be a gender bias and Caitlin suffers a lot more than Samuel does.

So there! We can gripe, we can complain, and wallow in self-pity as forces conspire against us. But summer is drawing to a close, and soon we’ll be moving into a new house, giving us a chance to start clean. Till then, we’ll stay inside as much as we can during midday, listening to the sounds of the street coming up through the window. You know street sounds: mopeds zooming, people chatting in Arabic, kids crying, a donkey braying, shouts from a pushcart man trying to clear the road, the muffled sound of a radio from a shop down below, and of course, five times a day the call to prayer ringing from the city’s many, many mosques.

Cinema Paradiso

Do you remember your first film? Ours were “Star Wars” and “One Hundred and One Dalmations” – the 70s-era animated version. Do you remember how big the theater seemed, the screen hidden behind vermillion velvet curtains; the plush seats that folded you up with their clamshell springs if you didn’t sit on the very edge; the bucket of buttery popcorn and sweaty paper cup of Coke? You watched, excited and a little bit nervous as the room filled up with people. It was nice to have Mum or Dad on either side just in case things got scary. When the lights first dimmed and the curtains parted to reveal the immense screen you couldn’t help but let out a small “ohhhhh,” your eyes riveted, your heart beating an excited rhythm.

Yesterday, in the middle of an unbearably hot afternoon, we took Hamoud’s two sons, Youssef (8) and Yassim (just 5) to see “Pirates of the Caribbean 2” at the Colisee Theater in Guilez. Neither had ever been to see a movie in a cinema before, though they’ve both watched the first Pirates movie a hundred times on DVD.

We arrived at the house to collect the kids to find them jittery with excitement, and a fair bit of trepidation about heading off with the two of us alone. Hamoud and Hint were there to say goodbye and Hamoud made sure Yassim had on a freshly pressed button-down shirt. This had clearly been billed as an outing of some magnitude. The boys both clung to their parents at the door, pleading that they come along, too, but after Hint handed Youssef a 10-dirham coin and told him he could call her at home if they needed anything, they set off with us hand-in-hand and emboldened.

We all piled into a taxi – the limit is normally three people to a car, but we convinced the driver that Yassim is so small, he’d duck and hide himself should we drive past a traffic cop. Once we arrived at the theater and bought our tickets, we headed over to the snack stand and bought an absurd supply of junk food: M&Ms, Malteasers, potato chips and sodas. When the cinema doors opened 10 minutes later and we walked into the grand old theater, the boys were in awe, running up and down the aisles, bouncing on the seats, whose flip-up bottoms they marveled at, counting the other viewers as they filed in, asking questions about the screen, the speakers on the walls, the little red lights lining the aisles, the enormous domed ceiling above our heads.

We took seats on either side of the boys, knowing they’d want to be together, but also letting them know that they could jump on our laps if they got scared. Yassim was too small to see above the seat in front of him, so we fashioned a booster out of the camera bag. Before the film had even started, they’d broken into the goodies bag and were gobbling candy and slurping soda like theater-going regulars. We kept glancing across at one another, loving every second of the boys’ reactions.

As we’d hoped, they were rapt when the lights went out and the first images flicked across the screen and we were treated to a surround-sound preview of “Miami Vice”. Not exactly fare for a five-year-old, but our attempts to distract Youssef and Yassim were futile. “Is this our movie?” Youssef asked. When I shook my head, he sighed with a bit of relief. And then, when the Walt Disney logo came on, he cried, “This is it! This is our movie!”

For the next two plus hours, Youssef’s eyes were glued to the screen. He’d occasionally look over at me when the music cued a scary scene, and laughed and screamed out in equal measures of delight. Since the movie was in French, we’re not sure how much of the dialogue either kid understood, but anyone who’s seen one of the Pirates movies knows the dialogue is sort of beside the point. Johnny Depp’s mugging, Kiera Knightly’s pouting and Orlando Bloom’s earnest stares tell you all you need to know. Whereas Youssef was captivated, Yassim’s attention span proved not quite up for the two-and-a-half-hour flick. He wasn’t the only one. How I wanted to join him in a quick sprint up and down the aisle and some full-volume chatter. First he wanted to play with the camera. Then he wanted to try on our straw hats. Next, he wondered about a bathroom break.

Minutes after Johnny Depp hurled himself, sword brandished, into the mouth of the giant octopus, Youssef asked in a tragic voice, “Is it over? That’s it?” We’re pretty sure he wasn’t expressing disappointment in the movie’s cheat cliffhanger ending, but at the realization that his first cinema experience was coming to an end. As we run outside to find a taxi, fat raindrops are beginning to fall and zigzag lightning arcs over the city. I grab Youssef’s hand in mine and give it a little squeeze. When he looks up, I want to tell him he’s made my day at the movies magic and that he’ll have lots more first experiences, kiddo. Instead, I smile and say, “How about that Captain Jack Sparrow? Think he’s gonna make it out of that octopus alive?”

Worksite de Luxe

There’s nothing like a quick trip out to a 4-hectacre worksite in the Palmerie to put things in perspective. Our architect friend Nathalie is managing the construction of a hotel/villa project that locals refer to as the mini-Taj Mahal. Let me tell you, there’s nothing mini about this place, from the workforce of 400 who have been laboring there each day for months to the gold-encrusted dome of Le Grand Palais. And yes, there’s a Petit Palais, bien sur.

Rooms will start at 4000 dirhams a night and an entire villa can be had for the tidy sum of 30,000 dirhams per night. For that price, what luxuries can one expect? Well, lots of water, for one, which is in scant supply in the Palmerie. Walking through the worksite, our sneakers quickly become covered by a fine red dust the texture of ground cinnamon, and driving in, we passed though a desiccated forest of palm and olive trees. This is terrain that doesn’t get a lot of rain. But you wouldn’t know it to look at the water features that hydrate this plan. To begin with, there’s a central basin that cuts the property in two and runs for hundreds of meters and is lined with a 20-foot-high colonnade. A central walkway raised above the basin will allow guests to saunter down its length and observe carp swimming on either side. Here, even the pools have pools. That’s right, each swimming pool is enclosed within its own large water basin. The aquatic motif carries out as one crosses from the Grand to the Petit Palais, stepping along a Japanese-inspired path of square stones “floating” in yet another pool of water. The project isn’t scheduled to open until March – though no one will be surprised if it isn’t finished until much later – so the property’s lake, which occupies center stage in this extravagant folly and winds around clumps of ubiquitous palms, has not yet been filled with water. Or perhaps, with the rate of evaporation in these 105-degree days, it’s already steamed itself out.

Midway though our tour, as we’re ascending the immense marble stairway in the Grand Palais, we get an agitated call from Hamoud. Our air-conditioners have arrived, but the fellow who’s there to install them is demanding that we pay an additional sum even though the installation was included in the purchase price. It turns out everyone’s got air-conditioning woes today; plans for the Grand Palais, it turns out, never included a spot for an air-conditioning unit, or the 40 we imagine it would take to cool this colossal space. As she’s weighing ideas like false ceilings and the like, I’m trying, in what we’ve come to call our telephone French (i.e., we can’t understand a thing that’s being said to us, nor do our responses make any sense to the listener), to figure out why a guy wants 1000 dirhams to put a 4-inch hole in our ceiling. Isn’t that what an installation always entails?

Sitting down with Nathalie and the general contractor over a glass of orange juice outside one of the villas, we hear about the inevitable faire-refaire, or “build, tear down, rebuild” conundrum that characterizes Moroccan worksites. He tells us how just last week, the owner had decided he wanted a pool at one end of the giant basin. This entailed a week’s worth of work, cutting through 30 centimeters of concrete lining the basin’s bottom, digging out a full pool, pouring a fresh 30 centimeters of concrete and then lining it with tiles. No sooner had umpteen gallons of water filled the pool then the owner changed his mind and decided he liked the basin better without a pool at its mouth. And so it goes. The pool example is one of design capriciousness; the number of times an element, be it a floor, the electricity for a villa, or a skylight, is redone because someone read a plan wrong or because the work is shoddy, would make your head spin.

In some way, seeing and hearing about the problems that plague even the grandest, most finely tuned worksites is a comfort. To build a house is to succumb to inevitable frustration. How many marriages are ruined over such a project? Would life in a tent or a tricked out Airstream really be that bad? On another level, though, it was fun to hear Nathalie speak with pride and genuine pleasure about some of the small, carefully considered design details that give a home (or a palace!) real character: the shape of a door opening; the placement of a window to catch the light just so; a fireplace that floats in the middle of a room. Visitors to Dar Noury, we hope, will marvel at the artful way the electric lines and plumbing tubes of our air-conditioners are buried in the walls. Form and function, baby, form and function!

Construction Update

“Hey look,” our chief mason hollers down from the rooftop terrace, as he tosses something down to Hamoud and us in the courtyard. Hamoud picks it up from amidst the debris, and holds it out for us: a human tooth. “We’ve found a lot more than that,” he says with a smile. “Bones, too.” We wonder if a builder had a tooth knocked out during the original construction, but Hamoud has another answer. By his estimate, the house is over 200 years old (we still haven’t found an exact date) and back then there was no cement, no concrete. Houses were built with earth. The problem was, the medina was already constructed, and there wasn’t much readily available earth for construction close to town. The solution? Raid the graveyards, skim a bit of earth off the top, and if you happened to bring the occasional bone or tooth along with you, so be it.
“So what else have you found, then?” we ask Hamoud, but he smiles and shakes his head, and will only respond, “A lot.”





Four weeks into construction and things look a lot different than they do in the States. For example, each Friday we provide a couscous lunch for the entire crew. And the work is done entirely by hand. There are a few tools we expected to see on a worksite that have yet to appear. For example, we haven’t heard the whine of a single power tool. Come to think of it, haven’t even seen a tool box. Nor have we seen a square or a level. But then there isn’t a single two-by-four to square or level. The only pieces of wood in the house are the rough-hewn beams that support each ceiling.



By now, we’re quite used to the donkey carts that deliver materials and take away rubble. And despite some dire warnings, things are moving along rapidly. If that means that one archway measures 97 centimeters while it’s partner measures only 94, so be it. It’s not like we need to fit a store-bought Marvin Window into it. Instead, a window will be made to fit the exact space. So we go with the irregularities for the most part, chalking them up to added charm.



There is one small… difference of opinion, shall we say, underway on the stairs to the terrace. As a rule, stairs in Moroccan houses are quite steep; often ladder-like. And there is never enough headroom. People seem reticent to lose floor space to make room for the stairs. Of course, we’re also quite a bit taller than the average Moroccan. As a result, we’re constantly ducking as we go up and down stairs, and even after several months continue to bang our heads regularly. We ripped out the old stairs to the terrace – suitable only for mountain climbers – and constructed a new staircase, which makes a more leisurely ascent. This meant pulling back the roof of the house.

It is here that our chief mason has his own opinions, which have given rise to a small battle waged back and forth with Hamoud as our go-between. While climbing the stairs, we only have to duck a little bit, far less than on the staircase below, and so the mason reasons that the staircase as such is fine. We explain that since we’re ripping back the roof anyway, an extra 60 centimeters would give ample clearance for even our taller guests. The next afternoon when we’re away from the house, however, he lays in the rebar and concrete and starts building the wall just where he wants it. When we see what he’s done, we complain to Hamoud who is trying to keep everyone happy. It’s clear that to rip out the work he’s done and redo it will take more time, eating into the mason’s profits. We’re at a stalemate and so for days, it sits as is.



During the interim, Hamoud, who has clearly been beseeched by the mason to talk some sense into the silly Americans, demonstrates how easy it is to tip your head to the side while descending the stairs to avoid getting clocked. He tells us stairways like this are normal. Normal in Morocco, we tell him, not normal in the States. We point out that Hamoud is shorter than both of us, and not carrying a tray laden with empty bottles and wine glasses. He nods and takes it in.

The mason, it turns out, is getting frustrated by our evolving plans for the house and wants us to add a bit of money to his fees. We’re more or less happy to do so - we never discussed a fireplace with him, which he’s built already - but Hamoud refuses. “He signed a contract with me,” he tells us. “I told him to forget you even exist, and if he wants to talk about money, he needs to ask me, not you.”



For the most part things move rapidly forward, but after four weeks there’s a little tension on the worksite. This is a bigger project than even the professionals had anticipated. As for the terrace stairs, when you come to visit, note if you need to duck as you descend from the terrace, and you’ll see how Moroccan our house has become.

Lowfat Lachleeb

In the high-end supermarkets of Gueliz, you can find pretty much anything you’d expect to seen in the States. In the small grocers of the Medina however, the perspective is a bit different. Yesterday I set off to buy a carton of lowfat milk for our breakfast cereal, only to be met with a series of blank stares. The difficulty of the search was compounded by my limited, if improving, French.

I ask for milk by its Arabic name, lachleeb, and the shop owner pulls out a box of parmalait-stlye whole milk. I compliment the milk, but then explain how I’m looking for “low quality milk.” He’s totally puzzled now, and goes to his fridge for a plastic bag-full of local milk, also whole milk. No, that’s not it, either. Your milk is very high quality, too. I want low quality. He looks at the foreigner in front of him, sure I’ve misspoken, and points to the box of milk. Top quality, he assures me, you want top quality. Taking the box, I turn it over and find the small print with nutritional information in French and Arabic. Lipides, that seems to be what I’m looking for. “Milk with fewer lipides,” I ask for. The shop owner and another customer look over the box and the nutritional chart, but I can sense this is going nowhere. “Same price,” he tells me. “Same price, top quality.” Well, what can I say to that? That we’re trying to cut a little fat from our diets? By this point the word for fat has come to me, but nevertheless, I thank him and buy the whole milk.

We might have to head out to a fancy supermarket to find lowfat milk, but at home we’ve got something that can’t wait. We found a cereal with a name that showed such unheard of honesty in advertising we couldn’t pass it up. And frankly, it seemed a bit silly to be eating it with lowfat milk. Gotta love those Sugar Coaties!

The Crush

Imagine the scene outside a Madonna concert minutes before the turnstiles start to spin, a mash of bodies hopping with energy and excitement. Now picture the crowd of avid shoppers stampeding the doors of Macy’s for the day-after-Thanksgiving sale. This is the level of pandemonium that greeted us this morning at seven thirty as we arrived at Radeema. “Radeema?” you ask. Is that a new Marrakech club? Home stadium for the national football team? No, Radeema is nothing more glamorous than the office of the city’s water and power department, and outside, minutes before the doors open, you’d think Mohammed himself was making an appearance. The crush is probably 250 people strong and growing by the minute, with a fuzzy separation of men to the left and women to the right. All are jockeying for position at the door and shouting with their arms held aloft, monthly meter slips, not cigarette lighters, waving in unison.

Hamoud greets us with a wink and gestures at the crowd, saying, “Oh, la, la.” As usual with Hamoud, he hitches his head for us to follow him around the crowd to the side of the building where he speaks through a window to someone in charge. We are quickly waved inside to the counter just as the doors swing open and the crowd swells and pinches through the door. We hear cries of pain as people are wedged against the metal doorframe, trod on and elbowed. The shouting, which was loud outside, is deafening within. Again, the men and women separate, forming two lines that each feed into one central teller’s window. To prevent cutting, the women clutch one another around the waist, bosom to back, like a playground choo-choo train. These are not close friends or family members locked in warm embraces. These are women grasping on to one another as if holding onto life rafts in choppy seas; muckling is probably a better word. Watching, we have a hard time masking our smiles. The men opt out of the full-body hug, instead holding their place by slinging an arm over the shoulder of the man in front.



We’re making our maiden appearance at Radeema to change the name on the Dar Noury water and power bills and to bring the account current. We learn that it’s been nine months since any bill has been paid and wonder that our water and power haven’t been cut off. Good thing the department isn’t too strict about such things; it’s tough to mix cement without water. We present the requisite documents – oh, this country loves documentation! – copies of our passports, house contract, the recepisse for our carte de sejour and, of course, all of the back bills and warning slips, which have been piling up at the house. We’re told that while we can change our name on the account today, we’ll need to come back to pay the bills once the meter reader has paid a visit to the house. What, come back? Brave this madness again tomorrow? Our faces register not only confusion, but fear. A quick exchange between Hamoud and the department employee, and we’re suddenly being fast-tracked. All will be taken care of this morning. How it pays to have friends who have friends.

As paperwork is being filled out in quadruplicate, the three of us are surrounded by a throng of hot, smelly, angry bodies. Someone got wind that things are happening over in our corner of the room and the herd makes its move. Personal space is not a concept honored at Radeema and one can’t help but feel a bit violated at being embraced in a squishy hug by a perfect stranger, make that three perfect strangers. “Stand your ground,” whispers Samuel, as if we’re soldiers on The Frontline. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t want to find himself in a clutch with Hamoud, but I’m having trouble keeping upright (I’m pretty sure one grannie is riding piggyback) and losing inch after inch to the headscarved dumplings at my back. “Stick out your butt,” Samuel instructs, miming a basketball player boxing out a defender, which draws sniggers from others in line. It turns out that amidst the screaming horde, there are a few with a sense of humor who are enjoying the circus as much as we are.

Once the employee who’s helping us out has all our paperwork ready, he slips it into a folder, but not before taking out someone else’s change-of-name request and tearing it in two. He shrugs, telling Hamoud the request is a year old and he’s sure they won’t be needing it. He puts our folder third in a stack of others just like it (any favoritism won’t be apparent) and takes them to his manager for signatures and stamps.

Et voila. We’re done. Except for the sweat stains that drench one half of my body from forty-five minutes of hugging, we’re unscathed. Turns out, from now on, we can have the bank pay our water and power bills, not to mention phone bills, saving us the trouble of making the monthly Radeema run. Will we miss the excitement and camaraderie of that great, group hug? Probably not. But it’s been awhile since we’ve had as much adrenaline at seven thirty in the morning.

Happy Birthday, King Mohammed

Who says you can’t judge a book by its cover or an Emperor (OK, King) by his clothes? Mohammed VI is one dapper dude. August 21st is the King’s birthday, and a National holiday. It comes just a couple weeks after his annual Throne Day celebrating his coronation, which is also a National Holiday, and one that serves as the basis for a sort of State of the Monarchy-type speech. The birthday is a little less political, and a little more festive as the streets of Marrakech are lined with flags and bunting covers many buildings as well.



We should probably wait to post about the King until we know a bit more, but the occasion of his 43rd birthday seemed like a decent time. In short, we’re big fans. Mohammed VI is the third king since Morocco gained its independence from France in 1955. While his father, Hassan II was a hardliner until the end of his reign, Mohammed has been a progressive King, and a popular one, as far as we can tell. It’s always clear that Morocco is a monarchy. The king has palaces in every city and is constantly in the press. Portraits of the King are on the walls of virtually every shop we walk into, and most homes as well. He’s always wearing a trim-fitting Savile Row suit, and occasionally a pair of cool sunglasses.

It must be said that the King is about more than just style; not only is he the head of State, he is the religious leader of the country’s Muslims as well. As a result, his job is a balancing act between respecting his religion and trying to be forward looking. In some key ways he’s been pretty progressive, particularly in the area of women’s rights, which he sees as key to the country’s advancement. In 2004, the country enacted a new family law giving women equal rights for the first time. Men can no longer say, “I divorce thee, I divorce thee, I divorce thee,” and call it quits. Women can’t marry until they’re 18 (up from 15) which means at least three more years of education. Earlier this year, the King appointed 50 female religious leaders, to balance (at least a bit) the male-dominated interpretation of the Koran, and gave women a place to turn to with their religious questions. He builds libraries faster than George Bush can read a book. He’s opened the country up to foreign investment; in fact, the only reason we were able to buy a house here is because of reforms to property law he enacted. He has increased small business loans, particularly to women, who tend to default less. ? While under King Hassan II, the press was so tightly controlled that even the name of the Queen was an official secret, the press (with a few exceptions) has been freed to write openly about the Royal family. In addition, while Morocco still has the death penalty, it has not been carried out under his reign.

Of course, the struggle is that in this constitutional monarchy, the main opposition party is a fundamentalist Islamic one. Hence the dilemma: Is democracy worth it if the majority elects to have an undemocratic country? While the death penalty has not been, well, executed, under the rule of Mohammed VI, it was the sentence for the terrorists convicted of plotting the bombings in Casablanca in 2003. These Royal steps are not without consequence. As this is not the sort of thing that is discussed in front of foreigners, we managed to go several days before we learned that earlier this month the King’s secret police thwarted a coup plot and arrested 44 members of a terrorist group called Jammaat Ansar El Mehdi. The King’s progressive policies were the motivation for the plot, and the group planned to rob banks to get the money needed to buy arms to dethrone the King and turn the country into fundamentalist Islamic Caliphate.

I’m sure that from a Western perspective there are things the King could be doing faster or better, but for a pair of Americans getting our first taste of life in a Monarchy, we’re pretty pleased with Mohammed VI, and wished we’d had a red flag to unfurl from our roof yesterday. And can we get the name of your tailor, Your Highness?

Storks 'n' Things

You know the expression about not seeing what’s most obvious, the thing right in front of your nose? Guilty as charged. For three weeks, we’ve been living in a neighborhood of Marrakech, Riad Zitoun, which abuts the Mellah, or Jewish quarter. The Mellah, it turns out, is home to the city’s rather significant stork population, or les cigognes as they’re called in French. We didn’t know this until about a week ago. I chalk the oversight up to survival instincts and decorator determination; when you’re dodging the maniacal traffic that zips around the Riad Zitoun roundabout, it’s best to keep your eyes on the road and not let them wander skyward. The Mellah is also a hotspot for beautiful lanterns and since we’re nearing light installation at Dar Noury, we’ve been engrossed in the quarter’s many lantern shops, attention and eyes fixed on perforated metal, not majestic, soaring birds.


About a week ago, we did happen to glance up to see an enormous, gawky bird swoop down onto its nest atop the mosque of Riad Zitoun. The nest, even from quite a distance, looked to be the size of a New York studio apartment. We stood watching the solitary foul for about a half hour, promising ourselves to return with a camera to capture this unique (or so we thought!) site.



A few nights later, we meet the manager of a maison d’hotes in our neighborhood. It’s called Les Cigognes. Hmmm, we think, that’s interesting. I wonder if there are other storks that live around here. Shortly thereafter, we have dinner at Kosybar, a near-hip restaurant with a terrace that overlooks the Mellah, and a collection of what must be 50 storks’ nests. Ah, ha! As we sip Pastis with the sun quickly sinking at our backs, we see stork after stork glide to its nest, a somber twilight parade.

Kosybar, by the way, which was closed the first few weeks of our stay in Riad Zitoun while its owners were on vacation, is quite a nice find. The place has one of the few liquor licenses in the Medina, which means you can sip a nice glass of rose up on its blustery terrace. The place is three floors with lots of black tadelakt, a design touch we’ve noticed in a number of newer restaurants and clubs. Although we’ve only had good fish a handful of times since arriving – mostly in Essaouira and once a whole fish baked with lovely veggies by Hamoud and Hint – we decided to brave the Kosybar sushi menu. It’s been three months since we’ve had any sushi, a weekly culinary treat in Los Angeles, so we decide it’s worth the risk. To our surprise, the artful slivers of salmon, tuna and swordfish that arrive are quite delicious, buttery in texture with a fresh, sweet ocean finish. When we compliment the waiter on the sushi, he explains that the chef is from Japan. And though he’s no Nobu, we’ll certainly be back, grateful for this much-missed cuisine.

Water Sellers

Oh, the thirst, the thirst. Under the hot sun of Place Jema el Fnaa, both tourists and locals battle dehydration. We’re probably each consuming 4 liters of water a day, and in the heat, it’s still not enough.

Wandering the Place, you’ll frequently come upon men dressed in red with colorful pitched hats ringing bells and carrying large goatskin sacks. We’ve tended to give them a wide berth as they are always asking tourists for money to pose for photos. Their attire marks them as Berbers, and we look at them as some sort of vestigial organ like the London Guards in their Beefeater hats.


These men are water sellers. They’re licensed by the state, and their numbers are thus kept in check. If we went out and bought ourselves red outfits and fancy hats, the police would quickly escorts us away from the Place. Often they’re fathers and sons, and operating in small groups they pool the tips they receive during the day and divvy them up each night.



At first this relic from the past struck us a little sad, but over time, we’ve found that a good many locals do indeed buy cups of water from them, though Hamoud estimates that they might earn 100 dirhams a day from tourists while only 50 dirhams from selling water to the locals. The Moroccan habit of communal water cups is at its most acute here; the water sellers’ form-follows-function outfits include a selection of drinking vessels attached to their chests. For thirsty customers, a measure of water is poured from the industrial-sized canteen into a brass or tin cup. Of course, when once these water sellers had to trek their water in from far away, they now go to the ice seller and stuff their bags with chips of his ice.





For foreigners, of course, the unsung heroes of the water delivery business look a lot less flashy. Though they bring water in plastic bottles, they still deliver it by hand across the city. And while aside from us, there are precious few tourists chronicling their activity, we’re all drinking their water.

Carte de Sejour

In just two weeks, our 90-day tourist stay in Morocco (Americans aren’t required to have a visa for the first three months) will be up. The usual routine is for expats to head to Spain or France, have their passports stamped, hang out for a few days and then return where they’re greeted with open arms for another three months. The consequences if you overstay your welcome, however, are grave, or so we’ve been told. Morocco is happy to have you, just be sure to play by the rules or you might find yourself deported to somewhere not so friendly. The alternative to this three-month, hello-goodbye schedule is to obtain a Carte de Sejour, which permits one to stay in the country for a year.

Since arriving, the Carte de Sejour has been a kind of Holy Grail for us. I guess we’re anxious to have the validation that this is our home for the year, and on a more practical level, having to go abroad, even for three days, would be a real drag during a crucial phase of the Dar Noury renovation. Hamoud has assured us that the process for obtaining the Carte de Sejour is a cinch, but others have painted a less hopeful picture of frequent rejections, or at least tedious paperwork and lengthy, unpleasant questioning by the immigration officer. Yes, there’s one woman who holds the key to our coveted Carte de Sejour and she’s got a reputation for being averse to baksheesh and for enjoying sticking foreigners with a little what-have-you. Good for her.

Last week, we went to the immigration office to obtain a list of all the requisite paperwork we’d need to get the Carte de Sejour, a sort of preemptive strike. Besides proof that we’ve bought a house, we need two copies each of our marriage license (buried in some box in a storage unit in LA, of course), an attestation from our bank that we’ve received wire transfers from the US and have sufficient funds to live for a year without working, a letter, written by us, that states “on our honor” that we don’t intend to work in Morocco, as well as copies of our passports, eight tiny passport photos and a 60 dirham stamp. Special thanks go out to a certain mother who made the trip to the town clerk’s office in Phippsburg, Maine, where we were married, to obtain a new copy of our marriage license, which she then had scanned and emailed to us. Who says you become less dependent on parents with age! A quick aside: As an alternative to a marriage license, the immigration department will except a livret de famille, or a book containing one’s family history, i.e., who begat who going back centuries. So, so French and rather quaint the idea of having the family tree bound and ready for such occasions.

Okay, so far so good. Only now, all of the documents – every page of every copy – needs to be stamped and signed by a government official, or “legalized.” This means a trip to Hamoud’s accommodating friend, the one who helped us out with all of the paperwork when we bought Dar Noury. Enough stamps to drain an inkpad and John Hancocks later and we’re in a cab on our way to the Commissariat de Police to face the immigration panel.

Our first bit of good news upon reaching the office is that the infamous dame is on vacation until September. We sit down in front of her stand-in, a soft-spoken man who writes in a bird-like scrawl and who proceeds, to the chagrin of others waiting in line for his attention, to fix all of the mistakes I’ve made on the application forms. As with other government offices we’ve experienced, everyone who has business with the immigration officer squeezes into one room, not a waiting room, but the actual office, vying for the few chairs scattered about. The door is left open to the street and those further back in line are relegated to a bench outside in the sun. The kind Official first snickers and then whips out a bottle of White-Out to amend the mistakes in my forms. Among the Frenchies in the room, this brings on exaggerated sighs, foot-tapping and very obvious glances at the clock. Oh, to be invisible!

Although all of our paperwork is in order, it seems we’ve had a misunderstanding. Instead of the two legalized copies of each document, it turns out we need four copies, two sets for each of us. The snafu illustrates how Mutt and Jeff the two of us have become. What were we thinking, that we’d be given one Carte de Sejour to share like our one cell phone? Jeff gallantly steps aside to allow Mutt her chance at a Carte de Sejour first.

What follows is an interrogation by the first immigration officer’s less agreeable partner. Do you speak French, he asks curtly. A little bit, I reply sotto voce, afraid of eliciting more reproach from our fluent roommates. Satisfied, he starts firing questions at me: “So, where were you employed from 1994-1998? What did you study in college? Why did you move from New York to Los Angeles? Any children?” To my “No, not yet,” I get a raised eyebrow. “Bon Appetit magazine, it is French, no?” “No, it’s an American culinary magazine,” I reply. “Culinary magazine,” he says, “that’s very important,” and he makes a note on my application. We can hardly contain our laughter at the purported importance of my short stint at BA, but oh, well. This continues for about 30 minutes and then I’m excused and told to come back tomorrow for my temporary certificate. I’m in the clear and barring further Dowe-Sandes betises, Samuel will be a real Marrakchi tomorrow as well!

Foot in Mouth Disease

In the States, there are plenty of salesmen’s clichés. One line I’ve always liked is that whatever product you’re looking at, that’s what the salesman has at home. Whether it’s the car salesman telling a young couple, I drive the Volvo, too, or a stereo salesmen convincing a customer he’s got the same Bose speakers at home, it’s a common sales pitch. And these salesmen are playing off a pretty sound supposition: We want to buy what experts in the field have bought themselves.

Mustafa is our plumber and electrician. He works each day with a small crew of one or two other men. He lives in Sidi Ben Slimane not far from our house. The mosque adjacent to our house is, in fact, his regular mosque, making it quite easy for him to duck out during the day for his prayers. He’s a friendly fellow, who chats with us frequently in his broken French, offering up enough jokes that a few manage to cross the cultural and language divide. When we’re on the work site, he reconfirms our requests during his cigarette breaks, seldom getting too upset when we change our minds, even when he’s half finished a project.

Hamoud had originally given us a quote for the two water heaters we’re going to need for the house. When we went to a store to scout, we found a pair at barely more than half that price. The two of us were quite pleased, thinking we’d found a place to save a few dirhams, and immediately began reallocating the money.

This afternoon, we went to the house and asked Hamoud and Mustafa about the water heaters. Those won’t work, Mustafa tells us. We need German water heaters that are premier quality, and that cost what Hamoud had originally estimated. I’m doubtful that the difference is that crucial. After all, we’re looking at a major brand for sale in one of the most prestigious stores. Thinking that we can make do with the lesser brand, and putting Mustafa in an American salesman’s shoes, I ask him, “Come on. Is it really that big a difference? What kind of water heater do you have in your house?” I’m sure it’s not the German make, and I’m hoping that by example our expert will confirm I can get by with the less expensive make. The language is a bit tricky, and gets filtered through Hamoud, but the answer when it comes is a bit of a shock. Mustafa doesn’t have a hot water heater in his house. Can’t afford one. When his family needs hot water, they heat it on a pot on the stove.

There’s no graceful way to back out of this one. It just highlights again the things we take so fully for granted. The existing shower in our house – one without hot water – is used daily by the crew at the close of work. Many, we think, probably don’t want to head home dirty, or are saving on water costs by bathing at our house. Still, it never occurred to me that it might be insensitive to ask a plumber what type of hot water heater he has at home.

Graceless Socials

We’ve all seen and sympathized with the occasional fellow who has had the need to relieve himself in a semi-public spot, be it a homeless drunk in a shadowy alley in New York or a cross-country trekker too far from the nearest gas station for whom the bushes must serve as WC. When nature calls, even in a less than opportune spot, most are discreet and careful to turn their backs to any potential onlookers.

Not so at high noon today in Marrakech. As we made our way down a bustling side street to the taxi stand, we were confronted by a young guy flagrantly peeing as he walked with jaunty strides towards us. He held his penis in his hand like a garden hose that he was using to water the street’s non-existent plants. He might have been drunk, or a glue sniffer on a nice high, but he appeared purposeful and with it, a young guy on the way to work or running a quick mid-day errand.

The streets these days are teeming with tourists and we’re not sure how many others were privy to the display or what their reactions were. For the two of us, this unusual multi-tasking scenario struck us as quite hilarious and not at all threatening, unless, of course, you count the possibility of being peed on in the middle of the street a viable threat!



“When in Rome” is an adage we’ve tried to adopt here as much as possible, and that goes for things both good and bad. Line cutting, described in an earlier blog post titled “Ashadir,” falls into the latter category. Normally, a disregard for the queue infuriates us, but today we had the opportunity to observe this “custom” from another perspective.

At Marjane, the local shopping emporium, we were in line to pay for some kitchen equipment and a few goodies – a bag of M&Ms, a bottle of wine and some skinless, boneless (featherless!) chicken. Unfortunately, Marjane has a policy that if you’re buying any alcohol, you are relegated to a specific check-out line, kinda like the 12-items-or-less express line, only this one is always the longest and slowest in the store. We ought to have been wary when we pulled up to the store in a cab to find the parking lot choked with the RVs of Europeans on August holiday, keen to stock up on beer and wine for the long ride back to wherever.

Just as we assume our place at the back of the line, a second register for booze-buying customers opens up right in front of us and we quickly maneuver our cart into first-up position. Okay, not the most considerate move, but even in the States when a new register opens, it’s often the nearest cart that wins. Immediately, though, there’s an uproar as a trio of French-wielded carts clamors to cut us off, claiming to have been in line for a half hour already. “La queue, la queue,” they whine. The locals, by the way, roll their eyes at the Europeans’ indignance. We begrudgingly allow the first two carts to pass ahead of us, but when the third makes a go of angling in front, we draw the line.

The cart is manned by a middle-aged, overweight pig of a woman and her passive husband. Too long in the sun, her leathery skin is a grotesque copper color and blazes Matador’s-cape red when we block her path. What ensues is a shouting, shoving match of comic proportions. Our carts clash in an angry screech of metal on metal, but porky’s got better leverage, having nearly prostrated herself against the cart. Her beady eyes bug with the exertion. She pushes and pushes, her teeth gnashing as she spews angry epithets at us. Samuel, brawny Samuel, looses ground, intimidated by the hideous specter of our opponent. A couple of Moroccan teens behind us begin to chant and cheer in our favor. Tu es rigolante, or “You are laughable,” Sam yells at the woman, with a forced falsetto laugh.

Pig lady is undeterred and proceeds to load her selection of beer and Coke and snack food onto the conveyor. She’s pinched in uncomfortably between our cart and her own and has difficulty grabbing the last bag of potato chips, but she gets them in the end and as a final, peevish gesture, moves the “Next Customer” divider just out of our reach.

A Dog's Life

After more than two months, we’re still getting used to the different lives animals “enjoy” in Morocco. From the moment we arrived we’ve been surround by alley cats. During the day you’ll see more than enough as they slink about, but at night they come out in full force, tearing into garbage bags and devouring what they can.



The other night we had cocktails at the twin houses of artist Rita Kallerhoff who explained that cats are common house pets to keep the rats that swarm the city’s sewer system at bay. Cats also develop a symbiotic relationship with the butchers and fishmongers in the souks. Any waste is flung into the street where a few waiting cats can be counted on to tussle over it, saving the butcher the hassle of more conventional disposal. The vast number of sickly kittens contrasting with the smaller population of healthy adults illustrates quite clearly that for the Marrakchi feline population, it is indeed a survival of the fittest.

Dogs, on the other hand, are quite rare here. We've heard that Muslims consider them unclean, though we have yet to read the Koran ourselves. More importantly, though, they're a luxury expense. I spoke with one middle-class Moroccan tour operator, fluent in both French and English, who recounted a friend who spends 160 Dirhams a month feeding his dog. The tour operator was aghast that so much money was being spent on a pet. “I know people who can only afford to eat meat once a month,” he told me, “yet this man buys meat for his dog every day.” Given this, it’s easy to see that dogs are generally imported by European owners or a status symbol for West-looking, upper-class Moroccans. Since we’re now subletting the house of a couple from New York while our house is in its “chrysalis” stages, we’ve added dog-sitting Daisy to our routine. It is immediately apparent that this is not a dog-friendly city. We’ve not heard of, let alone found, a single dog park in the city, nor are stores like PetCo in evidence. Since there are no sidewalks in the Medina, a walk with Daisy involves dodging the scooters and donkey carts, small vehicles and the throngs of pedestrians that jostle for space in the Medina’s narrow streets and keeping her on a very tight leash indeed.



Of course, Daisy lives a life of leisure, and the working donkeys and horses would be envious if they had the time to consider her life. The donkeys that bring loads of building supplies and cart away rubble from our house each day are worked quite hard. When not chaffing under heavy loads, they stand harnessed to their carts under the hot sun, eating handfuls of weeds. We’ve heard, though we have not yet confirmed this ourselves, that as they approach retirement, they’re sent to the zoo where they are fed to the lions. One note of decency: There is a law against using a whip on the mules; cart owners can brandish the whip to scare the poor beasts into service with a loud crack, but cannot touch their hides. We cannot speak to how well this law is patrolled.



Horses are very much in evidence in Marrakech, and in pairs they drive carriages that transport tourists and locals alike. While in New York City, the carriages mainly stick to meandering around Central Park, here they must dodge in and out of traffic, fighting for space with cars and busses, motor scooters, and pedestrians. The traffic flow is very organic, and while the sound of motorists squealing to a halt to avoid collisions is frequent, it’s much harder for horses to stop on a dime. Last night as we were heading past the Place in a taxi, we looked out the window to a horrible sight. A carriage was pulling out into heavy traffic at a trot and suddenly came upon a line of stopped traffic. We heard the scraping sound of metal horseshoes locking up against pavement, but unable to stop the forward momentum of the passenger-laden carriage behind them, the horses went down, and slid several meters across the road on their sides, whinnying all the way. This happened just outside of taxi window, and as our driver kept moving, we turned to see the two beasts struggling to right themselves. We couldn’t help but think that if the carriages themselves had some breaks, it would make life for the horses a lot easier.



We hope the two horses emerged relatively unscathed, but it’s clear that animals here are meant for work rather than pleasure, and the American habit of treating animals more or less like children is quite foreign indeed.

Skin Deep

French installation artist Martina’s exhibition devoted to musings on the skin is housed in a hammam deep within the Museum of Marrakech, a stately building in the Medina originally constructed in the early 19th century as a private residence for a minister of defense. Before becoming a Museum, the home had a second incarnation as the first girls’ school in Marrakech.

Skin seems an appropriate subject for an exhibition in a space devoted to the sluffing, cleaning and ministering of the skin. The hammam is made up of six interlocking rooms with lofty arched ceilings that are pierced to allow natural daylight to animate the space. The floors and walls are decorated with beautiful, worn zellij tile work, and intricate lanterns throw shadows that meander about the spare rooms. It is hot inside the hammam and though not yet noon when we arrive, our own skin pricks an instant sweat upon entering its chambers.

Skin is alive. It is translucent, revealing a pulse, a rush of blood beneath its surface. It reacts to heat and cold and emotion, flushing with embarrassment, or pinching nervous goose bumps. Skin bares the history of its wearer – birthmarks, freckles from too much sun, scars and clumsy bruises, fingerprints that match no other’s. Skin is deep.

Martina’s sculpture installations are much the same. Crafted of fine gauze, like the kind you’d wrap around burned skin, they are at once ephemeral and commanding pieces. She has taken skeins of the gauze and painted them in vibrant colors – vermillion, aquamarine, gold – and then stitched them together with delicate copper thread in shapes that resemble a deconstructed jacket, a battle-worn flag. The sculptures, which range in size from a few feet square to one that’s just shy of ten feet, are suspended on eyebrow-shaped copper hangers, like pieces of exquisite laundry drying on a clothesline. As the sun passes over the hammam, the pieces glow in warm and cool tones as if lit from within. The varying thickness of the paint that she has applied lends dimension to the gauze and despite its fluid, wispy appearance, the material is hard and almost plastic to the touch.

Martina calls herself a plasticienne, a moniker she’s coined to describe her art, which isn’t quite painting, nor sculpture, but more a multi-media installation, an experience. She is as vibrant as her work, with a corkscrew curly red bob of hair, wide smile, chic layered tunics and chunky, interesting jewelry. She is warm and appreciative, happy to discuss her work but savvy enough to let visitors amble through the space taking in the exhibition on their own.

After forty minutes, we are wilted from the heat of the hammam and retreat to the street, where a whisper breeze wicks the sweat from our skin and provides a moment of cool. Although we feel a daily connection to artistry, walking through the souks or visiting various workshops, we’re happy to have seen our first art exhibition in Marrakech, and to have found it so beautiful and inspired.

Cocktail Chaos

Last night we hosted our first cocktail party for our new expat acquaintances – the ones who haven’t fled Morocco in the August holiday exodus. We’re a survival group, too busy with work or projects to get out of dodge. With many of our favorite haunts like Café du Livre closed, we’ve promised to keep our social lives alive with the occasional soiree.

Early in the day, we make a quick run to Acima for supplies: rum for mojitos, beer, wine, whiskey, vodka, chorizo, olives, avocados for guacamole and such. As usual, the market give us black plastic bags so that we can return home with our liquor bottles discreetly cached, but they don’t have anything big enough for the case of Heineken, which Sam hoists to his shoulder to trek through the medina. I always feel self-conscious with booze so blatantly displayed; it seems an affront like wearing a navel-baring shirt or a mini skirt. Just as I’m complaining that Sam should tuck the box under his arm as we wind towards the house, a neighbor walks past, notes the case of beer and says, jokingly, “Save one for me!”

Despite the precarious climb to the terrace up a very steep stairway with a rickety railing and plants taking up half the space of each stair, we decide this is the best place for our gathering. The terrace is breezy and cool with a stunning view of the Koutoubia Mosque and comfy, pillow-littered banquette seating. We fill lanterns with pillar candles and scatter them about the terrace and pull together a playlist for the iPod. Everything seems pretty under control.

I decide to get cleaned up and Samuel steps out to get ice for the mojitos since the machine at Acima was broken. He asks the fellow at our corner store and is pointed to a vast Moroccan market just off the Place, which until now we’d not known existed. The market has loads of vegetables and in the back, a big, old-fashioned meat locker-type freezer. When Sam asks for ice cubes, a man opens the locker and hoists an enormous 3-foot block of ice onto a wooden counter. With a serious-looking sledgehammer and chisel, he lops off a thick 15-inch slab from the block. He then wacks away at the slab with the chisel, carving off 4-inch chunks and slivers, which he shovels into a plastic bag for Sam. Given that the market’s clientele is exclusively Moroccan, we’re pretty certain the ice has been made from good ol’ Marrakech tap water, but we decide to keep this from our guests. In two months, we’ve consumed enough tap-water ice to have overcome the microbe issue and hope that our friends, all of whom have lived here longer than us, have done the same.

Just as I’m stepping out of the shower, I hear the scrabble of Daisy’s paws, the chow we’re looking after, on the tile floor outside the bathroom. This is her preferred spot for “accidents” and despite our strict 4-walks-a-day regimen, she’s decided to let loose all over the floor. “Daisy, bad girl,” I chide running from the bathroom only to slip in a puddle of urine, scaring the dog so that she runs down the length of the balcony, peeing as she goes. Like most balconies in traditional riads, this one has drains for rainwater and runoff from plant waterings, so I take a bucket of fresh water and quickly douse the pee and then run to get the squeegie to direct the yellow water down the drains. As I’m furiously squeegie-ing, Sam runs to the corner store to buy bleach as the whole place reeks of pee. As I’m midway through a second dousing with water, the rusted squeegie breaks and I’m forced to finish the job on all fours. At this point, it’s fifteen minutes before party time and the cell phone rings; one of our guests is in need of directions, but just minutes away.

As I pull on a pair of jeans, the phone rings again. It’s another friend, arriving by car, and unsure about where to park and how to reach us once she’s found a spot. It dawns on us that hosting a cocktail party for ten people, none of whom have ever been to the house, and whose address we don’t even really know (the street sign is in Arabic and we’ve not even noted the number on the house), is going to lend another level of challenge to the evening. In our divide-and-conquer plan, I’m assigned fetch guests duty, while Sam fixes a drink for our early arrival and makes the dangerous ascent to the terrace with trays of food and glassware.

I quickly alert the men at the souk stalls around the house and the greeters at nearby restaurants that we’re having a small party and to direct anyone asking for Caitlin and Samuel to our propped-open door. Then, I set off to find Martina, a French artist who has an installation in the hammam at the Musee de Marrakech, and the friend who’s arriving by car. I have both of our cell phones in my jeans’ pockets and suddenly both are vibrating with the “I’m lost, come find me,” pleas of other guests. Since the house we’re renting is on a street bookended by the Place and Riad Zitoun, an easy taxi drop-off, not to mention another side street that leads to Rue des Princes (home of the infamous Patisserie), guests are arriving from all sides. At this point, I’m flustered and turned around myself and so when I get two calls from friends who speak only French, all I can manage is Reste la, je vais te trouver! or Sit tight, I’m on my way!”

Back at the house, Sam’s been getting what amounts to a stadium workout (running up and down the tiered stairs of each section of a football stadium) as from his crew days. He’s climbed the two precipitous flights to the terrace about 20 times. “We are definitely going to have a refrigerator and barware on our terrace,” he says with I’ve-learned-my-lesson gusto, “or maybe even a dumbwaiter.”

As we nestle into the banquettes and a pitcher of mojitos make a quenching first and then second round, the group settles into jolly conversation and the evening finally takes the happy turn we’d been anticipating. Our only lingering fear, as wine and whiskey bottles follow the mojito pitcher, is how the hell are our guests going to navigate those terrifying stairs on the way out?!

Death & Taxes

It’s a given that nobody likes paying taxes. Given how much of the Moroccan economy is cash based, it’s a wonder the government collects any taxes at all. We wouldn’t really give this much thought if it weren’t for the house. But the capital gains tax system here is much like it is in the U.S. If we sell our house in fewer than eight years we will owe capital gains tax of 20% on the profit. The profit is calculated by presenting the sale contract, the purchase contract and a stack of receipts for all the work done on the house. The purchase and sale price are straightforward, but getting receipts for the work done can be complicated, and we’re been told that not everything that’s deductible in the States is deductible here.

Take a trip to the souks. You set off to buy a beautiful lamp, and you begin haggling over the price. Whatever haggling technique you use, you end up settling on a price and paying in cash. Almost none of the souk shops take credit cards, and the little MasterCard or American Express stickers you occasionally see in windows are there to lure you in, rather than a promise of a working credit card machine. It’s assumed the purchase is in cash, and that nothing will be reported to the state. If you demand a receipt, the tax will be added on top of that. Nothing so surprising here, as sales tax is added on top of the price in the States as well.



Morocco, though, has two types of receipts, the receipt and the facture, which are quite different in their meaning and use. The lowly receipt is used between the buyer and seller only. If you go to the hardware store to buy a box of nails, they’ll give you a receipt, which lists items purchased and the price. A facture is a more legally binding type of receipt which has the name of both the buyer and seller on it, has a fancy stamp, and most importantly this facture involves a third party: the government. If you want to deduct the price of something from your taxes, you need a facture. It’s understood that by providing a facture, a seller must declare the income to the government. You can imagine that it’s not easy getting people to hand over factures. We’ve heard rumors that there’s a black market for factures, but we don’t know how it works, and it’s unsubstantiated at this point.

In the States, while sales tax is added to the price, income tax is the responsibility of the employee rather than the employer. During the closing on the house, we asked the translator about getting a facture for the real estate commission (in Morocco both the buyer and seller pay a 2.5% commission: the seller out of his proceeds, the buyer on top of the purchase price). We were a little surprised when he told us that the 2.5% didn’t include the tax, and if we wanted a facture, we would need to pay the Immobilier’s income taxes of 20%. We balked a little and told him we’d think about it as it could be done after the fact. Meanwhile, we handed over a bank check drawn up for the Immobilier.

Arguing that he was selling the house at no profit, the seller of the house had negotiated down his half of the commission. Frustrated by this, just after we’d handed over a check for our full portion of the commission, the realtor stood arguing with Hamoud in Arabic. Finally, and quite reluctantly, Hamoud told us he was being forced by the Immobilier to ask us for a cadeau to cover the lost commission from the seller. We laughed at the gall of a man who had already tried to get us to pay his income taxes, and politely declined.

When the Immobilier went to the bank he discovered that our check had a notation on it that required, “for deposit only.” To avoid pay taxes on it, he had wanted to cash the check; to deposit it would alert the government to his earnings. To avoid this, he again appealed to Hamoud, claiming he didn’t have a bank account in which to deposit the check and asked for us to have a new check issued without the “for deposit only” notation. Rather cheeky, we thought, only now we had closed on the house and had legally done all we were obliged to. We offered to pay him in cash, but less 20%, for the “favor,” and suddenly he remembered he had an account in which to deposit the check after all.

In Morocco, death might be certain, but taxes less so.

When Anarchy Works

Today we went to a barbeque at the home of two new acquaintances, Mark and Birgit, an English-German couple. Their villa is located in the Palmerie, a posh neighborhood about 7 kilometers from the medina. Real grass, a big outdoor swimming pool and hamburgers on the grill. A bit of heaven. We sat on carpets laid out on the grass, propped up with brocade pillows beneath an enormous karob tree, which, although we have much disdain for its choco-substitute nuts, provides an elegant and abundant shade. Birgit and Mark like to entertain eclectic groups on lazy Sunday afternoons. Today, we are just seven, including two Moroccan brothers and their sister. The sister has lived in Munich for the past 14 years and is a friend of one of Birgit’s Bavarian cousins.

Since it’s our first visit to the Palmerie, Birgit gives us the name of a trusted cab driver who knows the route from the medina to their house. His nickname is Mohammed-Vite, a reputation born of his tendency to treat the narrow routes of Marrakech like the Autobahn. His dashboard is strewn with silk peonies, a curious complement to his manic driving.

During the course of the brunch chatter, conversation turns to the dramatic philosophical differences between Germany and Morocco, basically a case of extreme order versus anarchy. We recount our frustration at the line-cutting tendencies here and our delight in the phrase “Asha dir? Ana lewel!” or “What are you doing? I was here first!” which we use to the amusement of shopkeepers and line-cutters alike. Queues are sacrosanct in Germany, Birgit explains; no one cuts and all accept the rules of the queue without question. The Munich-based Moroccan tells us how disconcerting and dangerous it is when she comes home to Morocco and follows traffic signals by the book. The other day she started across the street as the walk signal flashed green and was almost flattened by a car and two scooters as they careened though the red light.

The thing is, the rule breaking and general creative anarchy that rule here in Morocco seem to actually work better on many levels than the regimented practices of places like Europe. Birgit even sites a study that found that places with rule-bending drivers experience fewer accidents than their law-abiding counterparts. Our first-hand experience seems to support this claim. We’ve seen very few scrapes – even on streets where cars, taxis and buses share space with bicycles, scooters, pedestrians and horse-drawn carriages. And we’ve not seen a single ambulance; the only sirens we’ve heard were from police vehicles escorting some political convoy.

Here in Morocco, drivers are more aware of everything around them. They aren’t just focused on the taillights in front of them (by the way, only vehicles that exceed 20 miles/hour are required to use lights at night), traffic signals and the official rules of the road. Instead they are hyper aware, eyes darting constantly left and right, watching for oncoming vehicles. When the one rule is that there are no rules, drivers are imbued with real personal responsibility and decision-making. Eyes are wide open. Reflexes are fast. Probably the only true threat comes from the foreign drivers that clog the roads during the summer months.

If anarchy works better than order on the streets of Marrakech, we wonder if this principle would hold true in other aspects of life.

Not to harp too tirelessly on the house, the jury is still out on whether creative anarchy is the best philosophy for home renovations. Although work progresses at an admirably speedy pace at Dar Noury – it’s amazing how quickly walls and stairways can be demolished! – we’ve run into our first case of ‘measure twice, cut once” gone awry. Given that we’re complete novices about medina house renovation, the one thing we’ve been stressing is “make it strong”. We don’t want walls caving in or tubs falling through ceilings. Since the house is 150+ years old, we’ve asked the crews to rip up the floors to inspect the beams to make sure the woods in good condition before proceeding. Hamoud’s taken our structural cautions to heart and has promised to reinforce all of the floors with rebar and cement. Anyway, we arrived at the house the other day to find that the workers had already installed two built-ins – a bed and a bench – before ripping up, inspecting and reinforcing the floors beneath them.

To us, this seemed like a huge waste of time, but Hamoud merely shrugged and said, “We’ll just rip them out when it’s time to do the floors.” Cue Samuel turning beet red, pacing wildly and searching for French words to explain idiocy of said “plan”, only to sputter incomprehensibly.

“That’s the way it goes here,” says Mark with a laugh as we recount the episode. He’s right, of course, and we have to concede that we’ve been on the winning side of the city’s penchant for fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants construction methods. After all, on the same day we acquired two built-ins that aren’t long for the world, our clever and zippy crew designed and built a fireplace in our living room and solved the geometry quandary posed by our stairway leading to the terrace, which had been dogging us for weeks. Two points team anarchy, one point team planning. Who’s your money on?

Closing Time

Morocco follows the French model of long August vacations. Most of the Europeans here head north to Europe to avoid the worst summer heat, closing shops, maison d’hotes and restaurants as they go. In turn, the large community of Moroccan expats living in Europe returns home. Huge numbers of them drive and take the ferry across the straights of Gibraltar, so the streets are clogged with fancy cars sporting European Union license plates. The taxi drivers can’t stand it, as it takes so much longer to get anywhere. We get the sense that in their fancy cars, these prodigal sons of Morocco are showing off a bit to their old friends and families.



In other news, we closed on the house yesterday. We were surprised when our daily call to Omar at the bank yielded a bored, “Yes, the money is here.” A quick call to the notary followed and the next day, we headed in to sign papers with the Botox King of Morocco. We all sat around in a circle: the notaire and his assistant, Hamoud, the seller, and the two realtors as the two of us listened to the translator read the repetitive contract in English. It all went smoothly and quickly as we handed over checks and received plans and papers in return. We’ve heard so much about traditions here that we tell our seller it’s a tradition in America to take pictures with the buyer and seller of a house. When everyone hears the word tradition, they stand and clear the way for the photo op.

As we tumbled out of the office, the seller again invited us to visit him in Casablanca, and was pleased to hear we’ve begun work on the house. “Vous avez gagné du temps,” he tells us. Indeed, we began work twelve days before closing, and a lot has changed. Here are some highlights.

Here’s the courtyard when we bought it.



By now, the doors downstairs have all been stripped away. A window in the living room has been replaced with a second arched doorway (hidden behind the wooden planks.) We’ve opened two windows in a second floor bedroom on either side of the original one. Two windows on the balcony have been replaced with large arches at left. All the walls have been stripped down to the brick and then stuccoed anew. All the plumbing and electrical systems have been ripped out and are being replaced. The courtyard is now wired for light and sound.

Here’s the hallway on the second floor when we bought it. At the far end you can see the extremely steep staircase to a two-feet-square porthole to the terrace.





Well, now the stairs are gone and a part of the ceiling ripped out as well. Soon, a new staircase will rise to a terrace. Again, you see the windows on the left have been replaced with large arches and the floor has been ripped up for wiring, drainage and rebar reinforcement. Not pictured is the addition of two full baths, extensive work on the terrace, a new kitchen and various other improvements, or maquillage, “make-up,” as we keep reminding ourselves to say. This is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg, and there’s a lot more to come.

It’s a good thing we Americans aren’t accustomed to a month-long holiday in August, so while the rest of the expats have closed shop and headed home, we’re bound and determined to keep this precarious project on track.

3rd World Construction

Our experience with the developing world is limited, but one thing we’ve noticed in Mexico, Thailand and Morocco is an abundance of half-completed cinderblock buildings sprouting tufts of rebar. They’re always quite sad looking, and it often seems as if they’ve been abandoned by their owners.

I’ve wondered about the roots of these eyesores, and decided to ask Peter Mork, an American economist whom we met in Fez. He and his wife Emily were on the last leg of a year-long world tour. As an economist (economicswithaface.com) looking at the developing world, Peter seemed the right person to answer my half-built construction question.

As Peter explains it, these structures exist largely because, throughout much of the world, people simply do not have access to capital markets (i.e. bank loans, equity investors, etc). Morocco, like other developing nations, is a cash-based society. As such, builder-owners have to save up enough cash to construct a building, and often they run out before things are completed. Under these circumstances, buildings get put up piecemeal and take years and years to complete.

While the assumption may be that people in places like Morocco don't get loans because they don't have enough income or assets, the truth is that it has little to do with that. Instead, it has everything to do with the fact that the majority of people worldwide live and work outside the formal economy.





For people working in the cash/underground economy, without property titles, credit ratings, et cetera, this means that when they go to the bank for a loan they are only as good as their word. Unless the banker is a family member or trusting friend, they probably won't be getting a loan.

In contrast, the process in the States and other Western countries differs because things are largely above ground - we have property titles, identification, etc. As much as we curse the various credit reporting agencies in the States, which pass along bad information to FICO much faster than they correct it, the basic idea of the credit score is remarkably helpful. People and banks know they can track us down/trust us even if they don't know us personally. We can walk into a rental car company in, well, Marrakech, hand over a small piece of plastic and walk out with a car for a week. Not to mention get loans to expand a business, remodel a home, or try out botox.

Peter’s explanation makes sense, and was echoed by the few locals I asked about the Moroccan building process; all cited the time needed to earn money to continue construction.


For the Dowe-Sandes, the scary part is that we’re now drifting into our own 3rd world construction project. Because of delays with wire transfers and since wages, construction supplies and the like can only be paid for in cash, we’re undertaking a complete renovation of our house on the maximum ATM withdrawal limit, which between the two of us amounts to about $450 per day. We’ve stripped out the existing plumbing and electrical systems and are starting from scratch. We need supplies, and have a crew of 10, but if it costs more than $450 a day, we’re not doing it. So far, the crews are working along happily, but if they eventually decide they want to be paid, well, our house could soon become vacant with empty scaffolding in front of bare brick walls.



Note: Not to belabor our banking woes, but to illustrate that fiscal processes can be difficult even in the most advanced banking societies, we found, after ordering a wire transfer for funds to purchase Dar Noury, that our money was still sitting comfortably in our Los Angeles bank a week later. The wire transfer hadn't gone through after all; the woman responsible for it had been on vacation, and nobody covered for her. Though at last the transfer has been initiated, we’re still saddled with a delay of seven days. Since the money doesn’t just sail from our LA account to our Moroccan one – it sits in the Central Bank of Morocco in Rabat for an undetermined amount of time – it's now doubtful the money will arrive before our August 10th closing date. If that happens, we face the possibility that the seller could back out of the sale, take our deposit, and make us repair all of the demo work we’ve already undertaken. We're pretty sure that won't happen, but it's nerve-wracking to know the possibility exists.

PS- After noticing all these half-constructed buildings over the past two months, when we looked for a couple to photograph yesterday there were none to be found. The worksites we passed as we were out and about were most definitely under active construction.