Jan 2009; A new year...Time to learn the rules of the game.

Somehow it always feels good to get back, to get back to getting on with things, to somehow, sometime, completing...or is it just that you seem to get closer..it's just a mirage, everything is a mirage, none of this is real!

813....minus Driss!

When I'd left for Xmas I'd told the team that I'd be giving them a bonus if and when they returned to the chantier in January. Obviously it's a big risk to just leave your workers without work and thus income for a while. They have to eat and if you're not there, then they go and find another chantier. With the economic crash had come a dearth of new building sites and thus I hoped that they'd all return.

But they didn't.

I got back to find that Driss was no longer with us. As is so often the case, there are times when workers leave and you feel a sense of relief. This was the case with Driss. He was infuriatingly slow, but he was good and now I was left with Hamid, who wasn't slow...but just too slap dash for me.

We'd planned for Driss to complete the second R de C salon door on his return. Now he wasn't with us any more this had to be left with Hamid...I was worried. It had taken him several attempts to complete the large windows in the intra sol, to get them straight, and I'd worried at his work in the bathrooms. Now he was going to have to try rebuilding an arched door frame. I asked if he knew how to do it. His reply, as expected in the affirmative, bore all the marks of having just been insulted. But I wasn't sure.

Hamid on the salon door.

We talked it through, looked at the stencils and frames that Driss had used and assessed the problem, what we had to aid us and off he went. Of course it was, well not a nightmare, but simply not right. We stood from a far and looked as sides differed in shape, hight differed from the opposite door, arches sank on one side and rose on the other.

But you can never say this is wrong. You can never question a mwalems' capability, even if they are clearly jobbers and not real mwalem. And especially if they are your only jobbing mwalem...come back Driss all is forgiven!

Eventually we got something resembling the door opposite, and I have decided to leave the necessary changes to the plasterer...who one obviously hopes is a mwalem!!!

Breaking the rules.

The thing is tho' we were now needing to do a significant piece of work on the top of the house and were about to run out of authorisation, which would need to be renewed at anytime. The menza (the top room of the house) has a wonderful terrace that I wanted to exploit and open up. Previously I had to climb on to it via a neighbours house and it cried out for having a door put on to it. This however would require our extending the hight of an area that we would be able to use as a kitchen, but was completly illegal.

Razi begins work on the menza roof...and we close doors.
The only thing to do was to go Moroccan. I decided to close all the doors of the chantier to anyone other than me and the guys working. Noone would be allowed to enter until we had completed the work and as this would mean our V2 building permission would end, we'd have to work without one and hope that the Baladier didn't come round to check, as they tended to when authorisations lapsed.

So we set off to take off the roof and rebuild a whole room on the top of the house, one that would create a top cooking area for us and give access to a new terrace. The only problem was that our house is visible from the offices of the Caid and there was no chance that the Baladier wouldn't come round. Fine. Play the game.

Razi and Hamid at work on the terrace..watch that right hand side wall!

And sure enough as our V2 expired, so the baladier came round. All workers had been informed not to let him in and whilst he complained on the street side of the front door, my guys explained to him that they would lose their jobs if anyone came in......He left, furious!

The next time he returned, it was with the Caid (tho not the same at at Tazi...fortunately) and the Mkadum. This time I was in the house and listen to them all remonstrating outside the door, my workers humbly explaining their predicament and sniggering away to me.

This would mean trouble, but at least we'd get the job done. If they'd got in we'd have been well and truely..in the merde.
Umm, almost finished, but is that a slight angle on the right hand wall...Hamid?

When we finally finished I went myself to the baladier to ask for new authroisation. They were furious but I explained myself using a combination of fact and fiction that I now see is how things work here.

I explained that I had been away (infact I had been off to Geneva for a couple of days to present my research to UNICEF and various other INGOs) and that we had had a problem of people walking in off the street and casing the joint. We'd even had people atempt to break in, so you see, given the circumstances we had decided that noone could come in until I was back. The workers were only following my orders whilst I was away. had I known it was the Baladiers office, nay the Caid trying to get in, of course there would havebeen no question...my humblest of appologies, it's all been a big mistake, but would you like to come round now and see for yourselves that there is nothing untoward happening...marhababikum, you are welcome!

As it happened we had had some people just walk in off the street and they were unknown to anyone on site. Equally whlist we had had no door, let alone a roof on the top of the house, I had asked Abdelillah to be a guardian. during one of the nights he had been there, 3 guys had entered the house looking, presumably for doors, window frames, anything that they could have stolen.

He'd chased them out waving hammers, knives and large chunks of metal at them. From then on, whilst we had any open spaces at the top of the house, he would lay pieces of wood laced with nails stuck thro and turned upwards, but covered by bags to hide them. Beware the illicit guest who would almost certainly be crippled by landing on them......I'd never even thought of such an idea, and I'm glad young Abdelillah is on our side!

Most importantly tho, we managed to get our building done. It was checked out by everyone and there were no complaints and thus I learnt an important lesson..if in doubt, do as they do and then lie, lie, lie!

By this time we'd brought Razi over from Tazi, where we were still suffering with the rain and absent plumbing. Twatty had been sacked, complaining bitterly that he had been wronged and should be paid for the end of the job. The problem was we couldn't find another plumber. They came, looked at the work and, saying they'd see us tomorrow, never came back again. We have managed to bring in a couple of potential guys to finish the job, but it's going to be difficult and I fear the worst.

We've got Ali, a plumber who's been recommended to us and who is working at 813. He's a quiet man and just seems to get on with the job. But he doesn't know the PPR system we've put in at Tazi..he's an Alfacam man! I thought plumbing was just plumbing...obviously not!

But the sitaution at Tazi is getting serious. It hasn't stopped raining yet. maybe we get a day off, but otherwise it's just constant rain. Not drizzle, but hard, heavy rain. It's been months now and already we've got complaints from Abdullah, a neighbour at Tazi, that he has damp caused by us. Untill we get a plumber we can't do anything and anyway, if his walls are as damp as I fear they are, we'll have to wait until they dry out, which will take months.

The whole medina is just sodden.

Start of laying plumbing and electrics....and bye, bye, Hamid

Plumber at work...oh the pain.

Anyway, at 813, we've not only managed to build up the roof, but also have begun putting in plumbing and electrics. This is really a horrible job. You finish gratting, the house gets cleaned and looks beautiful with all the brick work showing. It's a real stage, you feel a sense of completion, almost sense that distant warm glow of achievement.

And then the electrician and plumber comes in and smashing huge trenches through the house to lay their lines. It's brutal, loud and unrelenting.

Following the building of the new kitchen and the terrace entrance, I finally decided that I'd had enough of Hamid. His work on the terrace was simply poor, especially when compared to Razi and he still just talked too much. With a lull in the masonary I told him that we wouldn't be needing him any further for the time being and that, when we had work for him, I'd be in touch.

His response was furious. He charged up to me, right in to my face, shouting, spittle flying. He lost control and refused to leave the house. I couldn't forceably evict him and with the workers all having their heads turned away, not wanting too get involved, I just had to tell him that we'd work round him and if he didn't leave eventually I'd have to get the police.

This of course is an empty threat. The police are rare visitors to the medina, mostly they fear it. The medina, in reality, polices itself.

Eventually he left filled with anger and aggression and days later I received a letter from the ministry of employment saying that he was taking me to a tribunal. That I should go to the appropriate offices and try to settle, before this came to court!

I met him and he claimed that he'd been working for me for 2 years and was due a years salary for having been unfairly dismissed. Fortunately I had all his signed wage receipts as well as documents showing that we hadn't been working for two years. I also explained to the authorities that he'd assaulted another worker only the week before (which he had) and that the Cais had told me not to employ him, following the incident with Shameless (tho I didn't feel good about that...but what the hell, the guys trying to shaft me!). Nonetheless, the official advised me to settle. I refused and we'll see what comes of it.

The rain causes wood and Karmud shortages.

Karmud is available but is expensive.

To finish the top terrace I've needed to buy karmud, the green tiles that act to push rain away from halkas and doorways. I went to the area where they are baked only to find that, due to the rain the ovens had barely been working and there was now a shortage of zelige and karmud.

Whilst these ovens are fired by the chaff resulting from the making of olive oil, I had heard, when searching for walka for the roof, that due to metres of snow building up in the Middle atlas, that wood was now in short supply and what was available was very poor quality. And it's true, the wood that is available now is poor quality and very expensive. Jesus when will this rain stop!

And on the home front...

Beccie tries out a new dish, rabbit...yum, yum, yum!

The rain has brought a real January blues to the place. We are wet, it's cold and instead of the normal bright wintery blue skies, everyday is grey. However we try to make up for this by entertaining at home and enjoying the simple pleasures of home cooking and home entertainment.

Infact it's a real joy cooking here. The markets are amazing, the produce fresh and there are most any spices you could want.

Obviously the rain has increased food prices tremendously, which must be hard for many people. But we are lucky enough here to be buffered from that and thus going to the Marche Central or the souks in the medina is always an oppoirtunity to try out a new recipe or type of food.

Personally I'm massively glad to have finished the UNICEF consultancy. It was hard work and I enjoyed the intellectual challenge. But no sooner had I taken it on, than I realised that I was already working at relative full capacity. Adding a consultancy on top of trying to manage a chantier, be a father and a husband, was simply too much. There weren't enogh hours in the day and I ended up working late in to the night and barely having any time with you or Beccie. We earned some good money, but phew, it's good it's over and I get my life and family back.

Which is to say that I get to spend more time with you, doing things like this....LOVExxxx