How did I wind up in this mess?
You may want to get a cup of coffee or something, because this is going to be a long one.
I’d always planned on moving from Fes to Rabat to start my research after I ended my language grant. Rabat, Morocco’s capital, is home to government offices, libraries, NGOs, and, most importantly, a beautiful beach. It's a great place to start research and spend the summer. And so my Fessi roommate Stephanie and I embarked upon the great housing search approximately six weeks ago in the hopes of moving to Rabat in mid-February.
Trip One:
We took the train to Rabat (anywhere from 3 to 6 hours, depending on how lucky you are) Thursday evening with high hopes and good spirits. After enjoying the hospitality of fellow Fulbrighter Chris, we spend the better part of Friday walking around and scoping out the city. Each area in Rabat has it’s own personality, and we wanted to get a feel for each before began looking for places. We saw only one “apartment” that day, an overpriced medina house where we would theoretically rent the middle floor of a three floor house. There was no kitchen, the top floor was a construction site, and the bottom floor was home to a family of eight. The whole scenario was so ridiculous that I almost blurted out, "Seriously?!?," but was able to bit my tongue until after we left the house.
Throughout Friday, we also made several attempts to contact various simsars. A simsar is roughly equivalent to a Moroccan “real estate agent,” but is in reality a mostly unemployed Moroccan man who hangs out a lot and thus knows of housing vacancies. As anyone who has used a simsar will tell you, they are a cruel and fickle group, never truly listening to your housing desires and taking advantage of you at every turn.
We finally crossed paths with our simsar, Muhammad, on Saturday morning in Hassan, a nicer part of town near our language school and close to the train station. We had previously told him we would like a two-bedroom apartment, furnished if possible. We also gave him a price range (no more than 4,000 dirhams). He took us to two apartments that day. One had one bedroom, the other had three. Both were completely out of our price range. Typical.
Explaining to him that the price was extremely important to us, he said he knew of a place in Ocean. Ocean is a more modestly priced area where many Fulbrighters live, and, although the street harassment rivals Fes, it's in close proximity to a huge, wonderful vegetable market and is within walking distance of our language school.
Stephanie and I remained cautiously optimistic. But when we arrived to the apartment, we realized that we weren't in Ocean, but were instead in Der Jamee3, an area we'd already ruled out due to the completely sketchy vibe we'd gotten the day before.
Irritated with Muhammad's lying ways, we decided to call it a day. To add to the frustration, he demanded money for the day’s work, which we flat-out refused to pay.
Trip Two:
This day holds the noble distinction of being the worst day I’ve had so far in Morocco. A week after our first excursion, we decided to try our luck again. Stephanie and wanted to take the fast train from Fes to Rabat, which is only 3 stops and is usually on time. We arrived at the station with plenty of time to spare. Except that our ticket line’s computer was broken, and so we missed the train by about 2 minutes. And the next train left late and took forever and was smelly and hot. We arrived to Rabat hungry, dirty, and frustrated. After a frustrating exchange with our simsar about where to meet him, he came to the station and brought us to another apartment. This one was fully furnished, nice, and in a decent area. But of course the simsar had lied about the price, and so we left the apartment in a hurry after an awkward exchange with the landlord about how much we were willing to pay. And then, of course, our simsar’s cell phone died, so he couldn’t make any phone calls, and we couldn’t see any other places.
This day happened to be Super Bowl Sunday, and we had originally planned on heading to the Rabat Marine House to watch the game. But I was tired, thirsty, and vaguely sick to my stomach. I hadn’t used the bathroom in 8 hours. I did not want to socialize. I just wanted to sleep. I went back to the train station and bought a ticket for the next train to Fes. And then it started to pour. I mean, really pour. So of course the train was late, and of course once the train arrived I had to stand for the first 45 minutes until a seat freed up.
We arrived back in Fes 12 hours after we left, thoroughly depressed about our situation.
Trip Three:
We received a call from Muhammad telling us about a great place that just came on the market. We make our way to Rabat with positive attitudes on the earliest train Saturday morning.
The first place he took us to that day was a furnished apartment in Ocean. It was a good size, and it was literally right on the ocean, giving us an amazing view of the beach.
Stephanie and I decided we liked the place enough to venture to the landlady’s apartment to negotiate a price. We made our way to Centre-Ville, where we arrived at the tallest, swankiest apartment building in Rabat. One wall of her grand salon was literally nothing but floor to ceiling windows, with a panoramic view of the city. Clearly, she is labas aleeha, a Moroccan expression mean very well off.
After some tea and small talk (she sends her daughter to Al-Akhawayn University, the only private university in Morocco; her son plays Playstation all day), we got down to business. She would rent the place to us furnished or unfurnished (everything was new, she assured us). For furnished, it would cost 4500 dirhams a month, slightly more than we’d originally said was our maximum price. But the thought of moving into a place that had everything was just too tempting- We’d heard story after story from friends about the hassle of purchasing couches, beds, fridges, etc., and it seemed way less stressful to move into a place that was mufarajah (furnished).
And so we decided to go for it. We paid 2 months rent upfront and gave our simsar a commission of a half month’s rent. We’d call her when we arrived in Rabat from Fes the following week to get the keys.
We left her apartment ecstatically happy. We’d found an apartment! Right on the water! Furnished! We were no longer homeless!
We treated ourselves to a gourmet pizza lunch and boarded the next train to Fes with a huge weight off of our shoulders.
The Rahlah Kabeerah:
The following Saturday, we made our way to the 7:50 am train from Fes to Rabat. Much to our dismay, we'd both accumulated lots of stuff in Fes, and if our friend Addie hadn't helped us transport our belongings it would have been next to impossible to make it in one trip. Thankfully we had an extra pair of hands, and the trip went smoothly.
When we arrived to the apartment building, the incredibly kind doorman let us in, and her son took a break from playing Playstation to bring the house keys over.
As we started to get settled, we realized some things were amiss. There was definitely, definitely more stuff in the kitchen the first time we saw it. There were no pots and pans, only a few plates and mugs, and next to no silverwear.
The problems didn't stop there.
The shower head is detachable, but the part that theoretically attaches it to the wall isn't the proper size, and so showering is a cruel misadventure in dexterity, which I sadly lack. Equally annoying is the toilet: The toilet bowl takes approximately 20 minutes to refill after it's been flushed.
The apartment is also incredibly noisy. Stephanie's room faces the main road, where traffic whizzes by at all hours. I have the pleasure of being situated next to a construction site, where work begins promptly at 8:00 am and goes until 6:00 pm, without a lunch break. Very un-Moroccan, and very disruptive to my sleep habits.
The icing on the cake is by far the fridge. The day after we moved in, it stopped working. I found a local mechanic, who told us the compressor was broken. It would cost 1200 dirhams to replace to part. We paid, of course. We needed a fridge.
We asked our landlady to come over to talk about the problem (after all, she had told us that everything was new, and new fridges don't have broken compressors), and she immediately began telling us (yelling at us) that we broke the fridge and that it wasn't her fault or her responsibility. She wouldn't pay for it, and we would just have to deal with it. She even went as far as to call the repair man, talk to him in rapid Arabic, and then report back to us that yes, he confirmed that we broken the fridge. She didn't budge, and we were completely powerless. Hilariously, throughout this exchange, she constantly referred to us as "her daughters." I wish I had the guts to respond, "Your poor daughter!," but I didn't want to incite even more of her wrath.
When the repairman returned the next day to replace the part, he assured us that we did not break the compressor; it was just an old part.
At this point, we decided that we wouldn't be staying longer than the two months we'd already paid. In addition to the constant noise (which, admittedly, isn't our landlady's fault), she is an evil, stingy liar, and neither of us want to give her any more money than we already have.
Over the past 2 weeks, we've slowly but surely gotten settled, shoving ugly knick-knacks in the closet and rearranging the broken furniture she gave us. But the whole situation is transient, and it's difficult to feel completely comfortable knowing that we'll be moving in 5 weeks. We also will have to face our evil landlady's wrath soon when we tell her we're moving out, which adds to the stress. And, typically, a week ago the fridge stopped working again. This time, it was the fan, which cost another 600 dirhams to fix. This time, we didn't even bother calling her. Clearly, she doesn't care at all.
As for where I'll move when our lease runs out, I still don't know. The path my research takes over the past few weeks will play a big part in my decision. I'm making some NGO visits in the upcoming weeks, and if any of these groups are receptive to me working closely with them then it might make sense to leave Rabat and settle elsewhere. Or maybe I'll stay here for the summer and then move cities again in the fall. A lot is uncertain, and uncertainty stresses me out.
As awful as our landlady is, I'll be a little sad to leave this view behind.
