June - September 2009 Part 2; Neighbours.

Fin and Fran...now you're neighbourly!

What can I say about neighbours that I haven’t alluded to before. Of course I’ve told you about Abdulla, but he’s only one of 11 houses that neighbour Tazi, several, tho not all of whom have proved to be utter bastards.

When buying and rebuilding a house in Fez medina, and I assume any others, the building is, to be honest, probably the easiest bit, what really breaks your balls, is the attitude , clamouring, screaming, banging, complaining, maliciousness, and, as we’ve experienced on several occasions, downright aggression of your neighbours.

It’s amazing the difference between the attitudes of the neighbours at Tazi and down in Bab El Guissa, where 813, our home to be, is. There (at 813), an area that is significantly poorer, we haven’t had a complaint, and infact, ironically, it’s been me threatening to go to the Baladier about the building from another neighbour, Saida, who’s building a whole level on her house, of course without any permission!! That of itself isn’t a problem, only that part of their new terrace is very close to ours…so we’ve talked and they’ve agreed to make sure this isn’t a prolem..OK, watch this space, but still, all very amicable.

I was going to say that the main effect is that an area where there are many westerners (gaories in deriga..maroccan Arabic), is for prices of other houses to rise and for neighbours to become greedier. But at 813, we are neighboured by two gaouries, there’s another two in our street and 3 – 4 more within spitting distance, and our neighbours there couldn’t be nicer. If there is a problem they come and talk to me. I’ve barely seen the Mkadum, and the Caid …who’s the caid?
But up on Zkak Rouah it’s a totally different story.

At Tazi the main culprits have been our largest neighbour, that used to be adjoined to our house and was thus part of three large houses that made up the palace of Pasha Tazi, we call them Shameless, after the UK TV series based in Manchester. Anyone who knows the series, might get an impression of who or what I am alluding to!.

Shameless threw this grill on to our workers. Previouslythey've thrown bricks and threatened acid! Nice!

At the peak of the rush to buy in Fez, they were offered E300K for their house, they wanted 350K and so the gravey train rolled past. Now instead of being filled by wealth, there’s 56 people living in it, all with one tap for water and a huge chip on the shoulders of the three main owners.

As I've said we've had Abdellah and of course there is the Screamer..Fatima, who does exactly that...SCREAMS..now matter how you negotiate with her, what time you try to start or stop work...she screams. Fortunately I don't understand, but the guys say it..well, less than polite!

813, is so different to Tazi in so many ways. She's certainly a less complicated build, but it's not just that, the neighbours are much nicer, even though the neighbourhood is much poorer. It’s almost the opposite of Tazi, as I end up giving things to people who are so flexible it at times feels embarrassing.

Drains can tell alot about a place!

Fatima (not to be confused with Screamer), who lives at the end of our little derb at 813, has a house that has literally been constructed out of bits and pieces, many of which are being recycled out of what is coming out of ours, tiles, wood, metal..the odd bag of cement!. It was never part of the original medina and may have once been a garden. When we moved in …well we haven’t moved in yet, rather when we started building, she had had her sewage blocked by another neighbour and had sewage rising daily in to her house.

I asked why she didn’t complain to the authorities and had it explained to me that as an old, poor woman she held no chance of influencing anyone with authority to take her seriously.

We looked at what we could do for her as we also needed to divert our pipes. We managed to organise several households to agree to share costs of fitting pipes to support a new sewage system that would benefit everyone. However this needed to go in to the house of the neighbour who had blocked her outlet.

Now that's what I call a shitty derb...cleaning the drains!

Now this guy, Hassan, was another screamer, like Shameless. I went to see him to discuss the possibility of passing our derbs sewage pipes to connect with his system and for 30 minutes the man shouted at me…until I said I had to leave, being unable to cope with his onslaught. His wife explained he was highly strung, but a good man.

We all agreed that the “community” would pay to repair all work done in his house. He however, stated that he had no confidence in the “community”, but would agree only if I guaranteed the work and agreed to leave all the materials in his house from the outset. I refused, in part because I didn’t trust him to not take the materials and then create some sort of problem with the work (sounds terrible I know…but it’s far from uncommon…never do anything upfront, is now my motto), tho I couched it in terms relating to community spirit; “it’s not up to me”…

”No Mr Paul, you don’t understand, these Moroccans are snakes, they will never keep their word..you will see, I only trust you.”

“But you don’t know me!”

I spoke to the heads of all the five house holds involved, some agreed to provide piping, or cement or the zelige (tiles) to recover hassan’s floor, and so, with Hassan still very reluctant, we proceeded.

Men at work...in shit!

The work went well and in a couple of weeks we had dug through the channels, laid the pipes, connected all house holds and cleared the rubbish from our streets. I went away for a few days thinking it was a job well done only to return to Hassan screaming over the terraces at me.

What has happened?

He explained that once everyone had had their sewage connected, no one had finished the work in his house, that he now had a patio filled with earth from the original sewage, rats coming up from the old system and no one had relain his zelige. I went to find those who had said they would guarantee this work and all were absent or made vague promises. In the end, embarrassed by how we had left Hassan I sent over my workers and tiles I’d taken up from tazi, to complete the job.

“You see”, Hassan told me in volumous tones, as he shared dinner with me, the repairs now completed, “never trust a Moroccan, they lie, they are all snakes.”

It’s not the first time I’ve been told that by a Moroccan and I personally would have to disagree, having met some truly lovely people, but, as they say…where there’s smoke…….!!!!!
Decapeurs.

These guys are carrying on nicely, but they are taking far longer than we originally agreed. Of course it's difficult to assess exactly how long a piece of work will take, but at this rate it will be months. But when it's finished it looks great. I'm really looking forward to getting it finished.

Zelig.This didn't really get started until the end of July! So much for the flying start. haj had to go to a few other jobs (hope that doesn't bode badly) and bringing in and mixing the hirsch again was a major big deal. It's amazinbg how much of this stuff you get thro.

In honesty we also had to complete the work on the terraces. Driss has build a great BBQ which I hope we'll get to use asap...tho probably next year now. He also martobbed the terraces. martob is another lime/sand mix, but the lime is sieved as is the sand and depending on the mix ratio, you get a lovely fine finish to the external walls. There are so many layers to this house. I've decided to leave open a piece of the wall in the etage so that you can see the work under neath it. It looks beautiful. I hope it works and isn't another botched idea!

Do I have botched ideas? ..Here's one then, our shower fed plant beds at 813

On top of this we've also been working on both top and bottom kitchens as well as putting in plant beds on the terrace. The idea of these beds is that they are fed by shower water in the summer. Obviously this means that you can't wash in the shower, but in the summer what you want is to just rinse off, so this should work. I keep trying to think through "eco ideas". I wanted to have sink water feed in to toilets in the bathrooms, but the units were all in the wrong place. However this is a good start and we'll have to do a total audit for what we put in to xaouen.

Tazi.
At Tazi things are ticking over slowly. We've had Mohammed Teeth working on his own, which he loves, just gratting bits and pieces nd managing the plants. However now we've recruited another small team. Mohammed (old...there are so many Mohammed's it's ridiculous) and M'hamid (did you see the difference) a new Mwalem. He sounds good, let's hope he is. M'hamid is supposed to be a master at Martob and Madloup (fassi tadlakt). There's a ton of both to do at tazi so good luck to him.
Out of work.
It's summer and thus there are things afoot. You've been to a party at your crech, which was VERY LOUD and which people just took too seriously, especially the teachers who wondered why two year old kids weren't performing the birdy song (yes it's true...in Deriga) they'd practiced during crech, in front of hoards of camera totting adults!

We went to a great birthday party at jess's. what an event. She's a great woman Jess, very good fun, very special. She had a local womans' band that you loved and lots of dancing and wiggling. Unfortunately the female cook got too stoned and dinner came out closer to midnight. But it was an excellent evening, thanks Jess.

As for Fez, well it's getting bloody hot, of course and I love it. as is our won't clothes are strictly for out doors. There's been some incredible storms recently, which have cleared the air, though, as you can see from the pic...it needed some clearing!!.

XXX my boy, loads of love to you.