A New Beginning

After a fitful sleep in which my mind whirled with what lay ahead, I awoke to the morning call to prayer.

The sound was magical. Nothing gives the sense of being in a completely foreign place as much as the calls to Allah as the dawn breaks. The medina is full of mosques and five times a day the megaphones attached to the minarets thrum with the chanting that resonates around the city in a chorus of devotion.

[I have since found out that the call to prayer is called the adhan, and is done by a guy called a muezzin. The gist of what they are saying is: God is the greatest, there is no deity except God, Mohammed is the messenger of God, make haste towards worship, come to the true success, prayer is better than sleep (only said in the first call), God is the greatest, there is no deity except God. I will write more about my impressions of living in a Muslim community later, but in brief it’s pretty cool].

We breakfasted on a roof terrace, sampling three traditional types of Moroccan bread – one brown and circular, one polenta-like called Harcha and one layered, flaky and buttery – my fave, I’m still trying to find out what it’s called. YUM!

After organising a local phone number we excitedly headed back to our house to see it in the light of day.

We were greeted by a huge variety of rubbish strewn throughout the house -

bags of garbage that had been chucked in through the courtyard opening, dried fish heads, odd shoes, pieces of a bicycle, sacks of dirt, broken picture frames, smashed glass, metal piping, old tiles, handbags, mouldy clothes and plastic bottles.

Some parts of the house were smaller than we remembered, some larger. We walked from room to room discussing the plans that we had formulated in our minds over the interim and seeing how they matched up to the reality of the space. We quickly realised that the downstairs kitchen would have to be extended into the entrance hall and the entry rerouted though the salon. However most of what we had envisaged was possible. Looking past the layers of grime our dream was still vibrating beneath the surface and simply waiting for us to set it free.

The house had retained it’s charm and great energy and the space was perfect for our restaurant.

On the flip-side, the monumental scale of what we had taken on, how much there was to do and the reality of the project was fully apparent.

We then met with the estate agent who had sold us the property and collected the deeds to our house – some very old and exotic looking pieces of paper covered in tightly written Arabic script. We also received a barrage of helpful advice and recommendations. The biggest piece of news we learned was a major set-back however. We had planned to get the house revalued and then approach the bank for a mortgage in order to obtain additional funds for the restoration. Apparently the system here is not as easy as in the UK, France or Australia and we would struggle to get a loan from the bank – even if we were able to, it could take around six months to process.

We headed to Thami’s for lunch to digest the news and reacquaint ourselves with our favourite hole-in-the wall local restaurant from our previous trip.

Over cous cous and tagine we formulated a back-up plan for financing the project. Although reluctant to place the burden on other people’s shoulders we realised we would have to ask for help. We decided to call-in the favours offered by Vincent’s parent’s and a sympathetic previous employer.

Our next stop was the RADEEF office (the company that provides all power and water), clutching two years worth of unpaid bills that we had found stuffed under the door of the house. We wanted to get the power and water back on as quickly as possible because we were still entertaining the idea of camping out in our house until we could find long-term rental accommodation.

The expression on the guys face behind the counter when he brought up our address on his computer screen was not good. He raised his eyebrows, looked at us, back at the screen, then back at us. After clearing his throat a few times he announced that the total of back-payments owing was 2500dh, around €220…

Shocked, we asked to see a break-down of the payments, from which it became clear that the previous owners had considerately left us to foot the bill for their final three months of occupation. This, plus the monthly fees for the power and water connection for two years had added up significantly.

Balking at the prospect of paying off someone else’s bills we marched back to the estate agents to demand the contact details of the previous owners. Our request, and the reason behind it, was met with barely concealed derision. We were told that we had a snowball’s chance in hell of getting them to pay up and that we would just have to wear it.

Disgruntled we retreated to Café Clock (our temporary office as it has wi-fi, and most importantly is a central meeting place for everyone we know) to discuss our RADEEF woes. After relating our tale we learned that we were not alone, and Moroccans often left foreigners to pay their bills after moving out. It wasn’t unusual and we’d just have to swallow it.

The better news we received was that Mike had arranged for us to be invited to the one of the biggest party’s of the year – the annual Dar Roumana party, and it was happening that night. Many of the core medina crew would be there and it was the ideal entrée for us back into the community that we were to become part of.

That night we were led through a maze of streets further into the medina, ducking and winding down and down until we reached the dar (the Moroccan word for house, different from a riad).

Through a doorway we stepped into a breath-taking interior courtyard that opened up to the stars several floors above and centred around a fountain. The scale of the property and the immaculate detail of the restoration dwarfed our own little house and showed us how much we had to do. We were met by Jen – the owner and impeccable hostess – who led us to the bar and a whirlwind night of introductions, conversation, dancing, laughter and uproarious welcome began.

We had an amazing night and were overwhelmed by the openness of everyone we met. The sense of support and community was encouraging but above all the range of wonderful personalities, diverse backgrounds, talents and experiences of these people, all of who had somehow decided to make Fes Medina their home, impressed us the most. A mixture of the quirky, the adventurous, the creative and the eccentric, everyone was here because of a shared passion for the place and a desire to invest in the preservation of the medina and the creation of an even more wonderful place to live. We felt instantly at home.