My Marrakesh

Morocco: Deserters. Destination...desert

I know you have been there. The boxes everywhere. The bits and pieces spilling out of closets. The sorting into piles left and right. The foisting of unwanted belongings on others. The unearthing of objects that you swear you haven’t seen for years. In short, packing moving. It’s painful. Very painful. For the first time in your life, you start contemplating having a minimalist home – you know the kind you see in magazines, the kind that has one very beautiful chair in the living room and one finely wrought bronze bowl on the floor next to the chair, and one stark and lovely black and white photograph on the wall. And that’s it – in the whole house… No seriously, for the avid collectors of stuff that we were, this packing process made us swear off buying anything ever again. Yes, I said ever (okay, that phase lasted for about 15 minutes).

Yards of bubble wrap later, we were battered and bruised. But our home finally had the sought after barren look of one of those crazy art installations – the ones that only have 516 empty picture frames (or whatever) piled up against one wall in a space the size of an air hangar. And you are milling around with a glass of wine in your hand, commenting on the insightfulness of it all.

It seemed that we were ready, finally, to move.

The only trick was that, for my work, I had to fly to Palestine immediately. And so I wouldn’t be there for the actual day of the move. I would leave it all to the skillful hands of my husband who would somehow direct and manage a group of eight brawny movers – in Moroccan dialect (umm, had he suddenly learned how to speak Moroccan dialect? Hope, hope.) Then pack our two squirrelly children in one car, while having someone else drive down to Marrakesh in our other car. And only then motor across the country, with no one to pass out cookies incessantly to appease the underage masses in our backseat. Oh my…. Somehow, and it is not entirely clear to me how, he managed. Yep, the stuff of legends.

Morocco: Goodnight Mr. Moon

With a Marrakesh bungalow in our pocket, the time was coming to bid our house in Rabat a very fond farewell.  We had spent four years there, and the house held many important memories for us.  In the French quarter of the city, called Agdal, the house was a private space surrounded by tall compound walls entirely covered with climbing, flowering hibiscus.  We had enormous birds of paradise trees in the small garden, as well as many blooming plants under which our three tortoises took long naps.  The house had one floor for entertaining, one floor for sleeping, and one floor for the children to play and the family to eat.  Somewhat of a rarity in the city, we had heard about the house before it had come onto the rental market and had rushed to sign a lease. 

It would soon be time to hand the keys over to another family who would make it their own.

So before the packing began and the movers arrived, we would need to say goodbye to the house as we once knew it.  Goodbye to the bedroom to which we had brought our newly born daughter, goodbye to the bedroom where our son had built elaborate forts, goodbye to the guest room that had seen the arrival of more than 40 family members and friends.  No more birthday parties in the garden, no more dinners with friends at the living room's low tables, no more quiet breakfasts on the small porch.

The sadness of leaving this house would be made bearable only by remembering that it was never really ours in the first place.  Merely on loan.

So like at the end of a children's story, we would say:  Goodbye sweet house, goodnight Mr. Moon.  And we would close the book.

The Odyssey of searching for Home-r in Marrakesh

The search was on for a new home.  We drew a circle around the children’s school on the map and started looking.  So here’s what we found… exactly nothing. 

Camping anyone?

We were searching for a place that was on the outskirts of Marrakesh, about 5 to 10 miles out of the city.  Unfortunately, it seemed like everyone else was looking for the same thing, too, because there were very few things under $3,000/month.  Not good for our savings plan.  In general, Morocco is significantly less expensive than the US.  But we were looking in a relatively up market area, and the prices reflected that. 

After being taken by a real estate agent to one particularly depressing place that was inexpensive, but dark with no garden, we continued down the road and stumbled upon a For Rent sign on an iron gate. We rang the door but there was no answer.  Chris promptly scaled the gate to take a look.  (Normally, we don’t condone breaking and entering – it’s not the sort of family value that we try to pass on to our children;-)

In response to my fevered questioning, Chris called through the gate that it appeared to be several acres of olive grove and a couple of palm trees with a small house.  A few phone calls later, we were inside the house.  After some negotiating with the owner about needed repairs, the little bungalow and its olive grove were ours for a year.

Somewhat dilapidated but charming, or so I thought…..