Walls Up and Walls Down (Feb/March)

A bathroom doorway unexpectedly appears...

Meanwhile, back at the house things were progressing rapidly. Our builder had blatantly ignored any restrictions of the V2 ‘simple permission’ and proceeded to knock walls down, change doorways and basically do all the major structural changes that were supposed to wait until we had the V1 permission.

One morning we’d arrived at the house to find a doorway knocked through to the bathroom, as we’d planned, to turn it into a dual-access ensuite.

“I thought we weren’t meant to make any alterations to the layout until we get the V1?” I said to Vincent.

“Err, no, we weren’t,” he replied and popped off to try and find our build manager. After speaking to him, we were reassured that the doorway wasn’t a problem because there had been a door there originally, but it had been bricked up later on.

This explanation was perhaps ok in that instance, but couldn’t be stretched to the other, more major structural jobs that followed. Our builder glossed it over however, saying that it wouldn’t be a problem, everyone did things this way and we’d have the appropriate paperwork eventually.

“But what about the building inspection the authorities have to do before we get the V1 paperwork?” I asked. “Surely they’ll notice that the layouts have changed – all they need to do is look at the original plans that our architect has drawn up.”

“Don’t worry,” said the builder, “I know people at the baladiya and when the time comes there won’t be a problem.”

“Fine,” I said, “but if there’s baksheesh that needs to be paid because of this, it’s coming out of your pocket not ours.”

The big changes were coming thick and fast: cracks repaired and some walls entirely rebuilt, doorways being opened out and turned into arches, floors/ceilings (depending on how you look at it) between levels being rebuilt and new wooden beams being put in, and, most excitingly, walls being completely removed and replaced with solid metal beams as horizontal support.

This was the most exciting because it totally changed the sense of space and suddenly let in so much more light.

We’ve done this in two places. Firstly, on the ground floor we’ve created an open kitchen in order to gain a valuable extra couple of metres and to make the kitchen activity a feature of the restaurant. Secondly, on the first floor we turned a narrow, non-functional corridor room into a balcony, which, when furnished with a bar and stool seating will create the perfect place to perch when dining solo or in twos and look directly into the kitchen action down below.

Creating the balcony has also brought in tons of light to the two dining rooms it joined – through the new, big archways, sunlight suddenly illuminated what had previously been dark corners.

We’ve also decided that the balcony is the ideal spot for leaving the brickwork exposed, thus creating another feature. (An experienced medina renovator friend has assured us that he knows how to properly seal the wall so the lime and sand mortar doesn’t crumble).

These major changes had really made us appreciate the value of our engineer, who had been visiting the site twice a week to supervise the work. It was he who ensured that two metal beams were used to take the load when removing the walls instead of just one, and he was currently monitoring the new cracks that kept appearing in the walls of the dodgy top level.

It was becoming more and more apparent that this level had been hastily and cheaply added on at some point and a lot of rebuilding was necessary. Unfortunately, modern, hollow bricks had been stuck on top of the properly built walls, and then concrete poured onto thin metal beams to make the roof. The drainage from the flat roof hadn’t been done properly and so rainwater had rotted the concrete and rusted the beams through. So, as the walls were being repaired on the floors below, the house had begun to shift, causing bigger and bigger cracks to split apart the shoddy brickwork. We were going to have to remove the top metre and a half of all the walls and rebuild them using proper bricks, and then redo the whole terrace/roof. For the moment though, the builders had slapped a bit of plaster over the new cracks and our engineer said it wasn’t in any danger of collapsing. Phew! That would have been a few too many walls coming down for our liking…

Rebuilding a wall on the first level.

The wall almost rebuilt and our builder's novel scaffolding through the walls.

The blue wall, just before its destruction...

Let there be light! The balcony is created.

Opening up the kitchen and repairing the upper wall - the floor in-between obviously needs replacing!

Metal beams in and second level kitchen wall fixed.

Customs – Part Two (Feb)

We arrived back home at around midnight and collapsed into bed, only to have to roll out of it again not many hours later. Back in the train station once more we had an eerie feeling of déjà vu.

“Weren’t we here at exactly the same time, embarking on exactly the same journey only yesterday?”

Yep. Unfortunately so. Only this time we were armed with every possible piece of paper we could find. As Vincent had commented yesterday: “In future, when dealing with bureaucracy in this country, we need to travel with our filing cabinet.” Wise words indeed.

The morning went much more smoothly as we knew exactly where to go this time – bypassing the obnoxious lady at the office, we headed straight for customs at the warehouse.

After waiting for 20 minutes the chief customs guy appeared back at his porta-cabin and glanced over the new papers we presented. Everything seemed to be in order this time – job done? No chance.

Next it was back onto the office merry-go-round. We were pointed in the direction of yet another bureaucrat on the same site, who ignored us for 15 minutes before deigning to stamp the relevant piece of paper, enter the details into his ledger and send us back to porta-cabin number one. By this time though, everyone had left for lunch.

With nothing left to do but get lunch ourselves, we asked a security guy if there was anywhere to eat around here. Sure, he told us, just down the road. Foolishly or optimistically – you decide – we followed his directions and set off on foot. Once more, after 15 minutes of walking along the same dusty industrial road we were no closer to anywhere that looked like lunch. We gave up more quickly this time and hailed a Grand Taxi (these are beaten up old Mercedes that pick up and drop off people randomly and manage to squeeze seven people in at a time – very interesting when you’re tucked in with a big sweaty mamma in a synthetic leopard-print djellaba) and headed to a restaurant we’d spotted earlier.

Back at the site, and everyone back on duty, we carried on with the ritual to and fro and finally were standing in the TST warehouse, uniformed customs guys at the ready, correctly stamped papers in hand, and a fork lift truck headed towards us carrying a pallet with all our worldly belongings on it.

Deposited at our feet, the customs guys handed us cutters and motioned for us to start peeling through the layers of shrink-wrapped plastic and bubble wrap that swaddled our boxes like an Egyptian mummy. Apparently we had to open it in case we’d rigged it with explosives or something. The uniforms descended, picking boxes at random for us to open – although it quickly became apparent that they were fixated on books. “Books? Books? Which ones with books?” was the incessantly repeated question. They also wanted to know if we had any maps, especially maps of Morocco. “No, the only Moroccan map we have is back in our car in Fes,” I told one eager young inspector. “Can you show me?” he said. “Uh, no, like I said, it’s in Fes,” I insisted, inwardly groaning at the prospect of having to go back and fetch it – fortunately he’d moved on. He’d discovered copies of the newspaper and magazines I used to work for back in Australia and got very excited when I pointed to the by-line on the front page and said that was me. Off he went, round his colleagues, showing everyone. From then on it seemed like they were just being nosey, asking to see our wedding photos and so on.

Finally, with no illicit political or religious books being discovered, they started to pack everything back up. Concerned at the haphazard way our previously beautifully wrapped cargo was being repackaged, we took photos for insurance purposes, mindful of the fact the boxes still had to journey to Fes before making it undamaged.

With the inventory checker satisfied and correct signatures and stamps obtained we headed back to chief customs guy in porta-cabin one for the final sign-off. He looked over our papers again, scratched his head, and checked again. Hmmm.

“You don’t have your carte de sejour?” he said. “Not yet,” Vince replied, “we haven’t started the application process yet.”

Hmmm. “And do you have a letter from customs in England saying that you have officially left the country?” he asked.

“Err, no.” This was the first we’d heard of this new, apparently critical piece of paper.

He picked up the phone and dialled, presumably to ask a higher power what to do. Vince and I looked at each other resignedly and waited to hear our fate.

Shaking his head, sympathetic chief customs guy hung up the phone and cleared his throat. “I will have to write a letter to Rabat,” he said. “Because you do not have the correct papers, customs in Rabat will need to consider whether to release the goods,” he continued.

“This will take about a week, insh’allah, and then you need to come back to Casablanca.”

Silently taking in this new bombshell, Vince paused before translating this latest exchange for me.

I didn’t explode however. Somewhere along the line during this ridiculous debacle I had given up caring for the time being. I felt that it would work out somehow, my only concern was the mounting storage charges that would continue to accumulate while letters went back and forth between Rabat and Casablanca.

We shrugged, thanked the man for his time and prepared ourselves for yet another four-hour train journey home.

Post Script:

I wrote a letter of complaint to our moving company about TST’s incompetence in Casablanca, which was taken up by Vanguard – the shipping line – and battled out on my behalf. Fortunately the British side of the company was able to see reason and offered to pay our storage fees to date as compensation.

In the meantime, customs mysteriously decided to release our belongings with no further paperwork. Vince made the third journey to Casa alone and after paying customs 3000dh in ‘taxes’ and TST’s 1600dh storage fees our boxes were finally on the way to Fes.

They arrived the next day and were carried through the winding medina streets by a team of sweating carrosers (guys with two-wheeled trolleys). It was with great excitement that we unpacked some of our things, finding stuff that we hadn’t seen in several years since leaving Australia.

However we waited and waited and waited for the promised reimbursement of the storage fees until finally in May I emailed the shipping line directly.

The good old British side again got involved and TST responded by saying: “Mrs Bonnin must present herself at our office in Casablanca in order to receive the cheque” !!!

You can imagine how unimpressed I was upon hearing I had to travel to Casa again in order to be compensated for being made to travel to Casa…

This was my email response:

Dear Amal,

Unfortunately I never received the emails asking me to collect the cheque, thank you for your persistence.

However, asking me to travel yet again from Fes to Casablanca (a four hour train journey) to collect the reimbursement that was offered because of TST's original incompetence - which resulted in us having to travel to Casablanca three times at great inconvenience - is a joke I'm afraid. Morocco has a very good postal system. Please use it. Our current address is….If you require a receipt, I will be happy to send you one, also by post.

Could you also ensure this is taken care of this week, as I am going away for the summer and would like the matter resolved before I leave.

This was sent May 27^th. Unsurprisingly no cheque arrived before we left on June 8^th and I’ve received no further response. Rest assured though, I will resume correspondence once we get back in September…I’ll keep you posted! 

Customary Cock-ups (Feb)

Apologies to all for the long silence on the blog and thanks to those who have kept prodding me to get back to it. Without going into detail about the reasons why, I have been going through huge upheavals (which I suppose comes with the territory when you relocate countries and take on new projects) which have occupied my head-space so completely that I’ve been unable to write. This has been hugely frustrating for me personally as well as a lot of you who have been pestering me for new updates!

Anyway, suffice to say that the dust has settled somewhat and I’m finally feeling able to commence writing again, albeit being quite daunted about how much I have to fill you in on to bring things up-to-date…

Where to start? Where I left off I guess would be logical, but it’s hard to get my brain to focus on the events of five months ago when so much else has happened in-between. However the story has been linear so far, so despite being tempted to tell you the latest news immediately I feel I should keep the flow going (and hopefully some suspense) and try to retell things in the order they happened.

So. We had just got back from our wonderful break by the sea in Asilah when I received an email informing us that our belongings – which were being shipped from England – had arrived in Casablanca.

We had been waiting endlessly for this moment as we’d expected our boxes to arrive before Christmas (and had been especially missing our cosy dressing gowns for the morning dash to the bathroom in the freezing cold!) but due to Christmas shipping congestion (?) they weren’t due to arrive until February 3^rd. Our delight at the shipment arriving a week earlier than this was short-lived however, as the attached invoice was the first of many cock-ups that ensued.

We’d been warned by other Brits who’d shipped goods that getting your stuff from Casablanca was a drama, but while hearing these stories we had felt secure because we’d organised (and paid for) our company to deliver directly to Fes.

The company on the Moroccan end had forgotten/ignored this fact and sent us an invoice for delivering our goods to Fes (among other random incomprehensible charges) that totalled nearly 7000dh. Unimpressed I fired off an email to our British delivery company and asked them to intervene and get the invoice amended as we’d already paid for delivery. A few days later an amended bill arrived for 4400dh, which apparently covered administration, taxes and sundries.

We then phoned the company in Casa and asked what was required to get our goods released. We were told that we needed to bring our passports and the payment for their invoice to an office in Casa – it was not ok to simply put a cheque in the post. We had been hoping to avoid another trip to Casa after the last time and had believed our stuff would be delivered to Fes without us having to go there, but apparently not.

Resigned to another long journey, we bought train tickets for Vincent’s next day off (in three days time) as there was no way we wanted to attempt driving in Casablanca again.

A very early Monday morning on Feb 1^st, we blearily settled in for a four-hour train trip. Upon arrival it took us a while to located the office (Vince had written down the wrong phone number and after struggling to get directions for a full five minutes over the phone on a noisy street finally twigged he was talking to a completely unrelated company…) but we finally made it around lunch-time.

After demanding a full explanation of all the charges we handed over our passports, paid the invoice and thought we were done. But the fun had only just started. We were then told that we had to take the receipt to the company’s other office in the shipping yard “just down the road”. “Is it walking distance?” we asked and were assured it was only ten minutes by foot.

Twenty minutes later we were still tramping along a dusty, dirty highway with trucks belching exhaust fumes in our faces, wind whipping grit into our eyes and every blaring horn slowly eroding our nerves, and the shipping yard was still nowhere in sight. We twice asked people for directions and were told we were going the right way so persevered. However with empty stomachs growling and the fatigue building from the early start to the day we eventually gave up and finally managed to hail a taxi. Thank God we did because the place was another ten minutes by car. Despite cursing the stupid woman who had told us to walk we tried to calm ourselves in readiness for the next inevitable obstacle.

Sure enough, after speaking to the man in the depot the second major cock-up (not counting the ‘walking distance’ rubbish) was revealed.

“Where is your inventory?” asked the man. “Umm, we have a copy back in Fes but it was also given to the shipping company in England.” Ok. “And your carte de sejour?” “We don’t have one yet.” “House papers then?” “Back in Fes.” “Business registration papers?” “Not yet.” The list of paperwork required to clear our goods through customs had suddenly grown from simply passports and a cheque book to every official document they could think of.

“Tell him we already asked their office what we needed and none of this was mentioned – this is their fault and they need to sort it out,” I seethed to Vince.

The man just shrugged and said we could go to the customs office and explain, maybe it would be ok.

Thankfully this other office was just across the yard. We located the right person after fighting through crowds of men brandishing sheaves of papers surrounding a cluster of demountables.

We explained our situation (we’ve come all the way from Fes, the shipping company neglected to tell us about these other documents, can we just fax or send them to you etc) to the customs man in charge, who although sympathetic was unable to help. The reality of what we had to do next began to dawn. We would have to go back to Fes, collect all the appropriate papers and turn around and catch the train all the way back to Casablanca again the very next day. Before we left the customs office though, we made them write down every single piece of paper we would need to bring and made them check it twice.

By now we were furious. The whole arduous journey had been a total waste of time and money and despite being ravenous, tired and dehydrated we caught a cab straight back to the shipping company’s office in town to demand some recompense.

After hearing our complaint the girl at the desk palmed us off onto her manager. “Your company has been grossly incompetent and completely unprofessional,” I ranted. “At no time in any of our correspondence or phone calls was this list of documents mentioned and your ineptitude has wasted our time and money. We now have to go back to Fes and then return to Casablanca tomorrow to sort this out. The least you can now do is pay for our train tickets as an acknowledgement of your mistake.”

The lady manager picked up her phone and spoke to her colleague who had corresponded with us.

“She says you did not ask about these documents,” she retorted. “It is not our fault, we deal with hundreds of shipments and it’s not our responsibility to tell everyone what they need to bring.”

“I DID ask what we needed and your company did not do their job,” I insisted.

“Well, you obviously didn’t ask exactly the right question,” she said.

Unbelievable. Then to add insult to injury she turned around and said “oh, and by the way, you need to pay us storage charges from when the shipment arrived until it is delivered to Fes.”

WHAT? Not only would they not admit their mistake and reimburse us for our trouble, they now wanted us to pay more money for charges we had not been informed about until that moment.

Added to that the goods had been due to arrive on Feb 3^rd; secondly, they hadn’t contacted me immediately; and thirdly, no mention had been made of these storage charges in their emails to me should we have been unable to get there straight away – which we couldn’t as, like most people, we weren’t able to drop everything and travel for miles across the country at the drop of a hat.

The conversation was clearly going nowhere however, so we resolved to contact a higher authority later on. Temporarily defeated, we dragged ourselves back to the train station – via a sandwich shop, fried prawn baguettes were not top of my culinary choices by but this stage anything would do – and began the long journey back to Fes. 

New Food Adventures - Photo Essay

A recent trip to the coast provided us with the chance to check out some local ingredients and a two-day foodie fest ensued!

On the road to Rabat we came across some guys selling Saharan desert truffles. We’d heard about them and the season has just started so we were keen to give them a try. They cost 100dh (10 Euro) for half a kilo (we probably paid too much).

We arrived in Asilah and headed to our holiday house. We had been on the road all afternoon and had skipped lunch so we decided a truffle and mushroom omelette was an immediate priority. Once the mud had been rinsed off they appeared a pale pinky-brown colour and looked rather disconcertingly like testicles…still, we persevered. The truffles didn’t have much smell but we hoped if we put enough in they would have some flavour.

Sliced up and added to a frying pan with the mushrooms and some seasoning, our tastebuds were getting juicy in anticipation…add the eggs, struggle with the non-non-stick frying pan, serve with flaky Moroccan bread and voila! Hmm. Not quite as we were hoping – the truffles had very little flavour and a bitter after-taste. More research into the best way to use this ingredient is definitely needed.

The next food adventure came across our path on the way out for dinner. We bumped into some fishermen who had just brought in a crate of live spider crabs and decided to snap some up for lunch the next day. Four big crabs for 110dh – a much better investment than the truffles! We popped back home and put them to sleep in the freezer.

Dinner out was underwhelming, a disappointing paella (Asilah is close to Spain and so has a lot of Spanish influences) – we were better off eating at home!

The next morning I searched out the local market and came home laden with ripe avocados, fresh lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber, lemons, baguettes, olives, a bottle of rose and a jar of mayonnaise. Meanwhile Vincent had been boiling the crabs in salt water. We got to work and a simple, but very tasty lunch was soon ready: salad, fresh avocado with lemon juice and olive oil, crusty baguette with butter, green olives with preserved lemon and most importantly fresh crab. Picking the crabs apart took some doing as we didn’t have the right tools but we improvised with scissors, a garlic crusher and some garden secateurs! It was worth the effort though – mixed with a little seasoning, lemon juice and mayonnaise or just eaten plain, the crab was sensational.

Our last new food experience was discovered on the way back from the beach – fresh cheese and local farm butter from the back of a guys van. Back home again and chilling with a gin and tonic and a couple of hands of gin rummy, the cheese drizzled with olive oil and a sprinkling of salt and pepper was the perfect snack with more baguette and olives.

All cooked out, that night we opted for pizza and red wine – a lazy but satisfying end to two days of culinary adventure.

Building Relationships

With our V2 finally granted we were able to begin work on the house – two months to the day since we’d arrived back in Fes.

We changed the locks and nervously handed over sets of keys – and much trust – to our chief de chantier and build manager.

The first step was to protect the original features that we wanted to preserve. As I’ve said before, there are only three rooms with original zellij tiling on the floor – the modern tiling in the rest of the house can be destroyed by the builders as much as they like. To protect the floors a layer of thick plastic is laid down and then a plaster mix spread over the top, which then forms a hard surface.

All the woodwork – doors and windows – has been wrapped in plastic, and the dodgy ceiling in the downstairs kitchen has been supported with scaffolding.

The next stage is the ‘decappage’, which involves chipping off the plaster from all the walls to expose the bricks underneath. The purpose of this is to examine the condition of the walls behind and find any hidden cracks. We were a little nervous about this after hearing other people’s horror stories of finding walls so riddled with fissures that the whole side of their house had to be rebuilt, or finding bricks with no mortar in between.

So far, so good though. We’re now a week and a half into the build and most of the plaster has been removed, revealing walls in good condition and only a few major cracks that need repairing. To repair them, a section of bricks either side of the crack needs to be removed and then new bricks are ‘stitched’ in. The bricks themselves do not resemble the normal red house bricks that we’re used to, they are stone coloured and thin and the mortar that binds them together is a mix of sand and lime.

I actually really like the look of the exposed brick walls and we’ve been discussing the possibility of leaving a section of wall exposed as a feature. The problem though is the fragility of the ‘mortar’ which crumbles when you touch it, so we would have to find a way of sealing the walls with something strong enough to endure knocks, but permeable enough to allow the walls to breathe. Any suggestions are welcome!

Having the building work underway meant yet more paperwork, as a contract with the building company had to be drawn up, signed and stamped. This took several meetings – discussing the terms, making the changes, approving the changes and then finally heading to (a whole new) baladiya’s office.

We had been advised by friends not to sign a contract for a fixed amount of time, but rather to do multiple contracts for the different stages of the work, eg: a contract for the decappage, then if we were happy we’d contract them to continue with the masonry etc. When faced with the standard contract prepared by the builder however (and knowing how much paperwork is involved every time you want to create a new contract) we decided to sign a contract with them for 90 days, but add a clause saying that if we were unhappy with the work we could cancel the contract at any time.

We also added a clause saying that the building company would be responsible for their workers on site at all times, to avoid insurance payouts if someone is injured while working on our house.

Terms agreed and papers signed we went to the baladiya to get the contract made official. This process has to be seen to be believed! There were two copies of the contract, five pages for each, and each page had to undergo rigorous officialising. Both Vincent and the builder had to sign each individual page and then the lady behind the desk began the arduous task of marking each page with a total of SEVEN different rubber stamps and three stuck on stamps, plus scribbling official numbers next to all the signatures and writing both Vincent’s name and the builder’s name in full, on EVERY page.

This would have been fine if she’d been in efficient mode, but of course she was not. The process went: stamp, turn page, stamp, turn page, pause – look around, chat to the builder about his mother, stamp, turn page, stop to consult with colleague about the weather, stamp, turn page, stop because someone else has come into the office with an enquiry, deal with that person at length, finally remember the task at hand, leaf back through pages already stamped to remind yourself what you were doing, oh yes, another stamp. Stamping ten pages took the best part of an hour, which could have been amusing if not for the fact that we were both hung-over and dying for a coffee. Mission finally accomplished we then had to broach a difficult subject – money.

Our builder had asked Vincent for a cheque for 40,000 dirhams (about 4000 Euro), but I had balked at handing over so much money upfront. We had heard lots of stories about builders doing a runner with people’s money, and while we had signed on a well-known and reputable builder I was wary of signing over chunks of money. I also wanted to keep a close eye on what was being spent on materials, wages etc and preferred to actually go with the builder when he was purchasing materials and pay for it directly to avoid money being skimmed off the top.

The difficulty was broaching the subject without causing offense – how do you say I don’t trust you in a delicate way?

Anyway, we went for a much-awaited coffee and set about explaining our position. The main points I made were that we were living in Fes and so could be on site – with funds – every day (unlike some expats who renovate from afar), that we wanted to be involved in the process because we were excited to learn as much as possible – including where to source the materials, and that this was our first building project so we were interested in all the details and keen to be as hands-on as we could. I tried to frame it so that it was a positive wish for involvement and offering help, rather than having a negative ‘we want to watch your every step’ overtone.

Despite my best efforts though, the nuances were lost in translation and things started to get very heated. Basically the builder felt that we were hindering him from doing the job we’d employed him to do (which was managing the build, ordering materials, paying the workers etc) and were insulting him by refusing to hand over the money in advance. My suggestion of working on a weekly basis was met with derision – apparently a lot of the materials need to be ordered in advance and deposits made to secure timely deliveries.

The conversation continued to go in circles for quite some time – with Vincent and the builder going back and forth in French and me trying unsuccessfully to put our points across to the builder’s business partner who speaks some English, which he then relayed to the builder. I had to do a lot of backpedalling to calm the conversation down and went to great pains to reassure them that it was not a matter of trust and that no insult had been intended.

The resolution was a compromise. We would give them a cheque for 30,000 dirham and in return they would give us a detailed breakdown of how everything was spent and let us be involved as much as we wanted.

We were happy in the end, because although we still handed over some money upfront, the builders were definitely put on notice that we would be watching everything closely and that we wouldn’t tolerate being ripped off. We also felt sure that this team wouldn’t run off with the money as they were working on another much bigger project at the same time, and wouldn’t risk their reputation or employment over a relatively small amount of money.

Egos were soothed, tempers were calmed, and friendly relations were restored. But our message was clear – we won’t be messed with!

The Booze Factor

The wedding really highlighted for me just how different our cultures are in terms of alcohol.

The whole of the medina is actually a dry-zone, with no alcohol available to buy except in hotels for tourists. To buy bottles of wine, beer or spirits for your home, you have to travel to the new town or one of the big supermarkets on the outskirts of the city.

Rather than finding this a problem though, Vincent and I have actually enjoyed not having alcohol readily available on our doorstep. Our normal habit was to have a gin or vodka in the evening before dinner, and then a bottle of wine with our meal. As well as being fattening and expensive, we’ve realised this was probably quite unhealthy but it was our habit nonetheless. However, since moving here (apart from the Christmas and New Year’s seasonal celebrations) we’ve really cut down on our drinking and definitely feel better for it.

We attended a party last year where half the people were young Moroccans, and half westerners. One half were drinking, the other were not, but all had an equally good time – I bet only half of them felt good in the morning though. It was interesting to think about how we feel like we have to drink in order to enjoy ourselves.

And so much of our socialising revolves around alcohol! Whether it’s bars, pubs, clubs or restaurants, all these places are centred on drinking. What would we do otherwise? Where would we go?

I’m not knocking our culture at all, and those who know me know I love a drink, but living here has just made me think about it for the first time and question our dependence on alcohol as a social tool. We still have bottles of gin, vodka and wine in the kitchen and serve them when our friends come for dinner, but I’m now consciously deciding not to drink every day.

Another part of this issue is our restaurant. A major part of our concept (and future revenue) is built around having a decent wine-list but at the moment there are no stand-alone restaurants in the medina with an alcohol license. There are a few places that do, but they’re all part of hotels or guesthouses. The only bars are just outside the medina walls or in the new town. Part of the reason for this is that you’re not supposed to serve alcohol within 50m of a mosque. Come to the medina and you’ll realise that there are so many mosques there is nowhere that’s outside their range! I’ve heard that some enterprising official has now knocked off the zero, bringing the range to 5m. Anyway, an alcohol license is crucial to our business as we don’t have revenue from renting rooms and the profits from just serving food are slim. Much of our discussions in these past months have been about just how difficult getting the fabled license will be. Some say easy, others say it will be our biggest hurdle. Either way, we are pioneers on this quest and if we get it we’ll be the first ones to break the mould.

Our approach will have to be carefully considered, but the argument is that our customers will mostly be tourists or expats so therefore we won’t be corrupting the locals with evil liquor. As Fes is trying to attract more tourists and compete with Marrakesh, we need more European style establishments to cater for their tastes. A common complaint from visitors is that there’s nowhere to go out in the medina at night. With the government’s current drive to promote tourism as a growth industry and the King’s interest in developing Fes, we hope to use these arguments to our advantage.

After hearing all the nay-saying you can imagine our surprise when we received a positive endorsement of the idea from our local Caid. We haven’t quite figured out the levels of administration yet, but each area of the medina has a Caid, who then reports to the Mokkadam, who reports to the Pasha – I think. One of the French residents here, upon hearing of our alcohol license plan advised us to get in touch with our Caid immediately, as he is the one who approves or rejects such things in the neighbourhood. This we did, and he arranged to meet us at our house. After showing him around and discussing our plans for converting the house into a restaurant we warily broached the subject of applying for an alcohol license to find out if he was open to the idea. Expecting some resistance, we were delighted when he said “you MUST have an alcohol license, there is no question!”.

Having him on side is big plus, it now just remains to be seen how much it will cost us to have his official support when it comes down to it.

However the whole thing has made me reflect on our cultural impact here. Part of the reason we moved here was the unique opportunity to live amongst people who’s day-to-day lives have remained unchanged for centuries. While the new town is modern, the medina is like a living, breathing piece of history and we want to contribute to its preservation by restoring one small piece of it – our house. To be able to do that and continue living here though, we need to create a profitable business. And that business will in turn create employment for the locals directly by giving them jobs, and indirectly by attracting more tourists through providing the European-style service that they want.

But at what cost? I know modernisation is inevitable but what makes Fes unique – even compared with Marrakesh – is that they still have an authentic-feeling medina. This is one of Fes’s biggest draw-cards. And the quest for the tourist dollar may end up undermining that uniqueness. The development here will have to be very carefully managed to avoid that outcome. And sure, a handful of restaurants serving wine with dinner may not change the medina too much. But I just don’t want to be the thin end of a wedge that unintentionally destroys what we’re all trying to preserve.

On the other hand, someone else will eventually do it if we don’t. And perhaps the only solution is to be as culturally-aware and sensitive as possible while bringing about the inevitable change. Hopefully we’re equipped to do that.

Marriage in Morocco

Although we’ve only been here for two months, Vincent and I have been invited to around half a dozen weddings, sometimes by people that we’ve only met for five minutes. Apparently this is normal – Moroccan weddings are drawn out events and not many people stay for the duration except family members. Mostly guests arrive, pay their respects, have a bit of a dance and then leave after a couple of hours. My ex-pat friends have also told me that Moroccan weddings can be very boring, with the women and men segregated in separate rooms and that a lot of sitting around and waiting is involved.

We hadn’t taken up any of these invitations until recently, mostly because we felt awkward turning up and some random stranger’s wedding. However an Australian friend of ours just married a local woman so I took the opportunity to attend my first Moroccan wedding to see what goes on and of course support the union. Vince was unfortunately working, so I went solo.

Weddings here are alcohol-free as drinking is against the Islamic religion, but of course with a bunch of ‘gauries’ in attendance and an Aussie getting hitched, we felt that we couldn’t celebrate properly without a few drinks. So we all met up at a friends place beforehand for a cocktail party and then decided to sneak in pre-mixed vodka and tonics in water bottles. We felt like naughty kids again, trying to spike the fruit punch at the school disco or hiding in the loos swigging from a hidden hip-flask but it was actually quite fun! There was some discussion about whether this was disrespectful but we agreed that as long as we were discreet it was ok. Besides, in our culture having a drink at someone’s wedding is the way we celebrate the occasion, so we felt justified.

The other issue was (as always for a woman but especially here) what to wear? Apart from the fact that all my dressier clothes are still on route via ship, I wanted to acknowledge their traditions and wear something appropriate. A lot of women dress very conservatively here, especially in the medina, and although I balk at wearing a headscarf I do try to avoid revealing clothes. I had also seen some very fancy djellabas in the shops here and figured these were for weddings, so was keen to give them a try. I hadn’t had time to buy one however, but at the last minute a friend lent me one of hers which was gorgeous – pale pink and gold with embroidery and a vintage look to it. Perfect. I accessorized it with a gold pashmina from India (Hindu and Muslim in one outfit!) and was set to go. The bonus of these ‘dresses’ is that you can wear any comfy clothes underneath and as it was winter I happily layered up with my favourite jeans and several jumpers. [Some women in the medina go out still wearing their pyjamas underneath their djellaba, if you look at their ankles you can sometimes spot an inch of pink flannel decorated with ice-skating penguins peeking out!]

However when we arrived at the wedding and I proudly stepped out wearing my local garb I quickly realised I had missed one crucial element – all the women had wide, fancy belts matching their dresses that cinched them in at the waist. Apparently the one time these outfits are allowed to be form-fitting is at weddings! I had seen little shops full of these gaudy, mostly gold belts but hadn’t known what they were for until now – they actually resemble wrestling trophy belts and we’d been hazarding random guesses at their purpose…now I knew. Typical that whenever you try to blend in you end up standing out even more by getting it wrong!

Anyway, we had arrived at the right moment because after a few minutes of waiting the big procession started. All the women gathered around and the bride was lifted in a glittering, silver wedding chair (called an ‘amariya’) onto the shoulders of the men and carried along the street. She was followed by a group of musicians playing long horns and drums and preceded by her new husband and us – all the women – clapping and dancing. We slowly made our way into the hall, the bride was lowered to the floor and then escorted to a throne, where she sat beside her husband for the next couple of hours. People made their way up to them to pay respects and have their pictures taken and then got back to dancing. Basically the bride and groom have to sit unmoving while all their guests have fun. Although, considering the bridal gown it was probably more comfortable for her not to move! It was covered in so much bling that it must have weighed a ton. Add to that a diamante-encrusted tiara, huge necklace and ear-cuff things, rings and bracelets galore, and it’s a miracle she could even stand up…Plus this outfit was only the first of seven she would change into throughout the evening, each one more bling-tastic than the last. Apparently it took a team of women to dress her each time.

There was also an overly enthusiastic videographer who kept doing sweeping shots of the couple – far away, swooping in scarily close to their faces and then back again, and this live-feed was projected onto a large screen for us to watch while we danced. Personally I would have found this very annoying!

Another bummer about being a Moroccan bride is that you’re not supposed to smile. At all. Ever. The whole night. Apparently one reason is that as the woman is leaving her family home to live with her husband she is supposed to look sad. Another reason I heard is that it’s based on a superstition that smiling on your wedding day will bring bad luck to the marriage. And one cheeky commentator suggested she couldn’t smile because it would have cracked her heavy make-up. Whatever the reason, surely it’s rather depressing for both the bride and groom not to be able to express their happiness?

Apart from the bridal couple, the rest of us had a ball. We started off with about two hours of dancing, to a mix of traditional and modern Moroccan and Western music. Apparently the music played at this wedding was quite progressive comparatively and the inclusion of a few clubbing tunes later in the night led to vast amusement as the gauries demonstrated their best nightclub moves while the locals looked on. They then retaliated by breaking out their best belly-dancing routines – which were amazing – and a bit of a dance-off ensued!

Dinner was served at about 11pm and consisted of a succession of large dishes placed in the centre of the table which everyone ate from with their hands. There were no plates or cutlery, everyone just dug in to whole chickens, ripping pieces off and munching away. As all the dishes were meat I ended up eating bread and mandarins for dinner – thankfully we’d eaten pizza at the cocktail party earlier. Dinner was over fairly quickly, and the tables and chairs cleared away. A fancy hand-washing contraption appeared – called a bakrage – which was a silver metal basin on a tall stand topped by a large silver kettle. A waiter poured the warm water over your hands which then drained into the stand below, and then you dried your hands on a tea-towel.

We got back to dancing, but this time the women grabbed myself and a female friend of mine and invited us to join them in their corner of the room.

The women were absolutely lovely, very friendly, warm and open and I think decided to include the two of us because we’d come dressed in djellabas. Dancing with them mostly consisted of moving around in a big circle, formed by joining hands with the person next to you but one. Turning slowly with these women, linking hands and listening to them sing in Arabic was a highlight of the night for me. I felt that my presence as a foreigner in their community was not only accepted but welcomed. Then the little girls took over our dance instruction and niftily tied our scarves around our hips to affect belly-dancing outfits. I spent a very enjoyable hour with the little ones as they tried to get my more rigid moves to flow into fluid hip wiggles and bum shaking. For a supposedly conservative culture, their national dance is really sexy! I was so inspired that I’ve resolved to take belly-dancing classes sometime soon.

When our group finally left at 2.30am, the party was still in full swing, with the bride only on outfit number three (I was thinking about the expense of buying seven wedding dresses but fortunately the gowns are all hired!). The groom told me later that things didn’t wrap up until 6am. All my friends said that it was the best Moroccan wedding they’d ever experienced, very modern (with the men and women mixing) and heaps of fun.

I was just glad I’d had a chance to witness a new side of the local culture in such a warm and welcoming environment, while picking up a few hip-wiggles on the way.