Highs...

The next few days passed in a blur of activity as we tried to get started on the long list of things that needed organising. So far the list has remained around the same length because as soon as we cross something off a few more things are added. Plus, the amount of time it takes to get something done here is usually three times what you’d anticipated, so we rarely achieve as much in a day as we’d hoped.

There were several highlights among the daily tasks though.

Firstly, we were overwhelmed by the generosity of the people we’d asked for financial help and the speed with which the emergency house funds arrived. The day after we’d asked for assistance these people came through for us, only adding to the sense of fortuity surrounding everything that has been connected with this project so far.

Secondly, we moved out of the guesthouse and into temporary rental accommodation with a lovely American lady who generously opened her home to us. Having a kitchen to use cut down on the expense of eating out three meals a day and we started to feel a little more settled in the medina.

Thirdly, we went back to our house kitted out in old clothes and armed with bin bags, rubber gloves and cleaning products. Clearing out the rubbish, dust and grime that had accumulated felt like progress and it was good to see the house emerging from under all the garbage. During this afternoon we also met some of the neighbours – a troupe of local boys scampered into the house after us so I decided to let them explore. After they started harassing us for money we had to kick them out however, and they then spent the rest of the afternoon knocking on the door every 30 seconds, despite repeated threats from Vincent. Finally I heard a local lady come out of her house and start berating them in Arabic, so I went outside and stood by her with my arms crossed, looking stern. I don’t know what she said to them, but it worked! I thanked her profusely and introduced myself in my limited Arabic, and she invited me to see inside her home a few doors down. I went but we were unable to communicate any further, so I resolved to start learning Darija (a Moroccan dialect, different from classical Arabic) as soon as possible.

Fourth, we visited the Centre Regionale d’ Investissement to obtain information on opening a business. We found a very helpful guy who gave us all the criteria for opening a restaurant and the forms for registering our business name. After our meeting with him, we walked back out into the street where Vince suddenly stopped and shivered, then grinned. “What’s up?” I asked. “I just got goosebumps!” he said. “It finally feels like this is really happening, we’re really going to open our own restaurant.” It was a good moment.

During the week we were invited to dinner by a super couple, her American and him French, who act as consultants for people restoring houses in the medina. They were a wealth of information on the processes we needed to undertake before getting a permit to start work on the house.

[There are two ways of getting work done in the medina, one you do all the paper work, get proper permissions and pay quite a lot up front to get things done legitimately. Two, you get a simple permission and pay under the table to get things happening quickly. We’re taking the first route because we want to open a restaurant and need to have everything above-board in order to get licenses down the track.]

It seems the first step is to get a topographic survey that shows the house in relation to the surrounding properties and clearly delineates the outline. They will also provide base plans for how the house is now. After that we need to get a structural engineer to check the walls, ceilings, floors and general structure to see what needs fixing. We then tell him what we want to modify and he sees if it can be done without the house falling down. He produces an ‘attestation de stabilite’ which then needs to be adhered to throughout the building process. Then, we get an architect to daw up the plans for the modifications we want to make. Finally we submit all this to the ‘baladiya’ who issues the building permit (hopefully!).

Feeling daunted by all this and wanting to ensure the paperwork is done right, we discussed bringing in the couple to help us through the beginning of the project. They came and saw the house later in the week and gave it the once over. She is a structural engineer herself, but isn’t licensed to practice in Morocco. However we were keen to hear a professional opinion on the structure of the house.

Downstairs started out fine, the cracks in the walls were not disastrous and most of the wooden beams looked ok – except for the kitchen. We may have to check out the plumbing, sewerage and drainage under the courtyard but this was expected. The second floor was also ok, the wall we want to take out to create another balcony could most likely be done. Some of the beams would need replacing and a wonky floor would need pulling up. The third floor was where the serious – read expensive – issues were revealed. This level had been added later, and unlike the lower levels was made of concrete. The weight of this was what had caused the cracks in the walls below. However the main problem was the ceiling, where the plaster was flaking away to reveal rusted metal beams. Apparently this meant that the concrete roof – which is also the terrace – was probably rotten and would need to be completely redone. We hadn’t seen this level when we originally viewed the house, as the family living on this floor was out and had locked the doors. Although even if we had seen the dodgy ceiling beforehand, we would have still bought the place anyway. Further inspection of the roof terrace showed that a section of it had been re-concreted to cover up the problems beneath. The verdict? Overall a great house with some fantastic original features, a stunning view, but an unfortunate roof. It could have been a lot worse.

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.

Arrival

Two years later: Our first day back in Morocco was full of valuable lessons and experiences – some we had anticipated and some we hadn’t – that once learnt would stand us in good stead for our day-to-day dealings in the future.

The first two hours after disembarking from the ferry in Tangier were spent in an excruciatingly slow-moving queue of cars but provided us with a wide spectrum of cultural teachings. One, Moroccan drivers like to use their horns. In this case it was one driver expressing his frustration at the stagnancy of the line, which was then taken up as a deafening chorus by other vehicles creating a cacophony of honking. Two, every person who does something mildly official in relation to your paperwork (and there were quite a few of them who turned up at our car window) expects baksheesh. Three, trying to circumvent the process and joining the cut-throat queue jumping strategy felt like progress in the short-term but eventually ended up taking the same amount of time anyway – which we have already applied to our decision-making regarding building: cutting corners may be quicker but the result is not as you’d hoped for. And four, in any given situation, any place, and any time, there is always mint tea available.

Having been unable to obtain car insurance (the ‘Carte Verte’) before arriving in Morocco, we had learned that you could get temporary cover from an office at the port upon arrival. This was our plan. However, after taking two hours to move 20m through customs and the officials eventually waving us on our way without mentioning it, we were in a hurry to hit the road and forgot to get insurance. I realised this as we were on our way out of Tangier and heading on to the highway, but rather than turning around and going back to the dreaded port we decided to wait until we got to Fes and drive carefully in the mean time. This would have been fine except in our impatience to get moving Vincent put his foot down a little too soon. No sooner did we feel like we were finally on our way than a white-gloved policeman waved us down and we reluctantly pulled over.

Of course, the first thing he asked for was our insurance documents. Vincent pulled out our English insurance papers and registration forms and handed them over, but from the look on the guys face and the way he was tapping the papers with dissatisfaction we knew it was not going to suffice.

“Where is your Carte Verte?” he asked. Bugger.

Vincent launched into his most diplomatic deferential mode and played the part to perfection. This was not the first or last time that his native French would prove invaluable.

“We don’t have it but we were also confused about this, because at the port they did not ask for it and just told us to go, go!” he explained.

“That is strange, they should have given you a five-day pass,” said Mr Policeman.

“I know, I know that very well sir,” Vincent replied plaintively.

“I will forget about the Carte Verte as long as you get insurance in Fes as soon as you arrive. However as you were also doing 73 in a 60 zone you need to pay me a 400dh fine,” said Mr Policeman. Double bugger!

“400dh? I don’t have this much on me after paying all the baksheesh in the port,” said Vincent.

“This is a much cheaper fine than you would pay in Europe,” Mr Policeman retorted.

“Yes sir, but I don’t have that in cash, do you take credit cards?” Vincent asked hopefully.

“Ahh, no,” Mr Policeman replied with a smile escaping.

“So, where can I find the nearest cash machine?” asked Vincent.

In the meantime another two cars had been pulled over so Vincent gathered up all the cash we had – 280dh – and offered it to him.

Distracted by the other cars he refused the money – whether it was   because he was wearying of us or was feeling generous we don’t know – and said, “Don’t worry. We will make the fine 100dh but just make sure you drive carefully and get insurance as soon as you get to Fes.”

Thanking the charmed luck that had been with us so far in all our Moroccan adventures, we drove off (much more slowly!) and were finally on our way to Fes.

The drive was filled with the fascinations of a new country – a foreign landscape dotted with passing images: grazing camels; a bent-backed old lady struggling to coerce a stubborn donkey stuck on a pass-over; people in rags by the side of the road selling buckets of nuts scavenged from a nearby forest.

We arrived in Fes late, wanting to collect the keys to our house before the agency closed, with no accommodation arranged and vague plans of camping in our house that night.

We eventually obtained the keys (the office was closed) and made our way back the house, anticipation building as we hadn’t seen it since we bought it two years earlier. We opened the front door and stepped inside a pitch-black hallway and groped our way to the courtyard. Of course the electricity had long since been cut-off so our first glimpse of the house was by the illumination of a mobile phone screen and a lighter…

The dimly-lit scene revealed piles of rubbish strewn throughout the room, dirt and dust galore. We quickly decided to find a accommodation for the night and to abandon any further exploration until the morning.

After installing ourselves in a guest house we made our way to the place where our journey had begun – Café Clock.

Our reunion with Mike (the cafe owner) was full of the energy and overflowing enthusiasm for which he is renowned – he excitedly introduced us to some other resident Aussies. The positivity with which our restaurant plans were received, amid welcoming exclamations about ‘new blood’ arriving in the medina, infused us with optimism and we ended our first day back in Morocco on a high.

A Little History

In October 2007 we were between yachting jobs and were pounding the pavements in Antibes, France. One Sunday I came across a newspaper article about property in Morocco which contained a small paragraph about Fes and the cheap houses available in the medina. Having always been intrigued by Morocco and looking for a place to open a restaurant that was within our financial reach, the germ of an idea was planted. During my research I came across the blog of Louis Macintosh and his house project in Fes. I dropped him a line asking a few questions about property prices and he emailed back saying that if we ever did decide to act on it we could stay with him in the medina. After a miraculous meeting with our bank in the UK (where they gave two unemployed people a large unsecured loan as a result of a few white lies and the lending policies that have now caused the current economic crisis…) we were on the plane to Fes and knocking on Louis’ door. He was incredibly generous with both his time and knowledge and rapidly got our house hunt underway, despite being hugely sceptical about our time-frame: we had just seven days to find and purchase a house.

Being told “it can’t be done” only spurred us on and on our second day we found the house we wanted. The house had a great feel about it, seemed structurally sound, was a good size for our project, had a great terrace and view and most importantly was in a very accessible location for a restaurant.

The only hitch was that there were two owners, one of whom lived a ten-hour bus ride away from Fes. While waiting for the arrangements to be made, Louis introduced us to some of the Fes medina crew. Café Clock (now a medina institution) was holding its opening parties – there were several! – and we had the chance to meet the locals. The people we came across were so supportive and of like-mind that we felt even more eager to become a part of this quirky community.

Meanwhile the second house owner was on his way to Fes and the sale was arranged for our last day in Morocco. We entered a convoluted process of getting the deposit into the country via several MoneyGram wire transfers, only made possible by the dedicated efforts of my mother in England and a helpful soul at her village newsagent.

The money came through just in time and we headed to the Adoul’s office. Walking through the streets of the medina with brown envelopes stuffed with cash hidden down your jumper is not an experience I’d recommend, however that was just the beginning of a day filled with anxiety. The sale was put in jeopardy three or four times due to incorrect papers, unpalatable taxes owed by the seller, the house price being suddenly increased and so on. Each time we had to leave the Adoul’s office and wait on tenterhooks to see if the problem could be resolved. We didn’t eat all day due to our stomach’s being so tightly knotted with worry and stress. Finally, 45 minutes before we had to take a taxi to the airport, the papers were signed.

Luck was on our side and the hand of Fate that had seemed to be guiding us to this point did not waver. The house was ours.

The Clean-up Begins

Our house has been empty for two years and was looking a little forlorn when we finally returned. However, through the dust, grime and rubbish we think she still shows plenty of promise and we can't wait to give her a new lease of life! This is the central courtyard and will form the heart of the restaurant.

This balcony on the second floor
overlooks the courtyard.

We plan to open up the wall on the
opposite side to form another
balcony and create a feeling of
openness and flow throughout
the space.

This is the pile of rubbish left behind for us by the previous owners, collected from various places around the house. This was also added to by generous neighbours who had chucked their garbage through the roof, leaving an appetising mix of dried fish heads, egg shells and ancient lemon rinds. Rest assured this will not be on the menu when we open!