FURNISHING A RIAD IN TANGIERS

The central courtyard unfurnished

Furnishing a traditional Moroccan home (riad) in Tangiers requires area knowledge, cultural awareness and unassailable resilience. To set goals, benchmarks and schedules is a sure path to madness. The same goes for trying to achieve absolute authenticity. At first, the downstairs, where ornate plaster and intricate mosaics predominate, was to be “beldi.” (Beldi is a tricky Moroccan concept, which can mean antique and traditional as well as antiquated and rustic.) The upstairs was to be mixed. In the end, both floors turned out to be an eclectic mélange of new and old, cheap and expensive, Moroccan and foreign. To cite one example, the drapes, upholstery and carpets come from Morocco, the Middle East, Central Asia, India, and the United States. Some areas, such as the central courtyard are still awaiting an influx of inspiration and funds.

With unlimited funds, a local cabinet-maker would have carved the furniture and a local decorator would have produced a “beldi” look. With two retirees on a fixed income, alternate sources were in order. These sources were: Carved wood that did not fit the intended space recycled into furniture; items from second-hand shops and flea markets restored by the night watchman; furnishings from my husband’s apartment in Casablanca repurposed for the riad and new rustic furniture from outdoor markets used to meet immediate needs.

$1000 Table (Left) and $100 Table (Right)

To give an idea of prices, a new hand carved table for the Moroccan salon costs about $1,000. A second hand “mocharabiye” table from the flea market runs around $100, depending on one’s haggling skills. For drapes, a Tangiers decorator proposed raw silk from Spain at $50 a meter in colors of her choice. She came highly recommended because she does quality work and meets deadlines. However, with 11 ft. ceilings, her services would have consumed the entire decorating budget. Instead, double-width cotton in the colors of the stained glass windows fit the bill at $7 a meter. The fabric was from the wholesale fabric market in Casablanca (Derb Omar). A local upholsterer, found through a Muslim brother in the Tangiers Bird and Flower market, made the drapes. The upholsterer’s work was acceptable but his brother, the drape installer, was not up to the task. He sang in a cabaret at night and had trouble staying awake during the day. We loved his Arabic love songs but his brother had to rehang every curtain.

Tangiers has a whole gallery of second hand dealers (brocanteurs) on the Rue de Fez but the prices they set for foreigners are high. Casa Barata, also known as Souk Barata, the huge flea market in Tangiers, has some interesting items if you are willing to walk for miles to find them. The days, when beautiful English furniture sold off by expats wound up in Casa Barata, are long gone. A local brocanteur on Avenue Hassan II in Tangiers was the source of a Bavarian bone china dinner set. He had tempting French oak furniture and Art Deco pieces left over from the French Protectorate. However, it was tough to buy from him because he was seldom open. Sometimes, the old gent who parks the cars in front of his shop can find him. Ould Mina, the flea market in the Hay Hassani district of Casablanca, is open for business seven days a week. The dealers there buy out whole houses and sell for reasonable prices. By buying in bulk, shopping on weekdays, going with a Moroccan niece, dressing in an inexpensive djellabah, and opting for good rather than great pieces, I obtained better prices than most foreigners.

Cedar doors recycled into a desk

The carved wood pieces that did not fit the intended space were the most satisfying to design and commission. From a set of massive cedar doors meant for the entrance to the courtyard, a Casablanca cabinet-maker produced an executive desk and four square tables. From two cedar doors destined for the entrance to the Moroccan Salon, a cabinet maker in Tanjia al Balia, the neighborhood up the hill from the riad, made an armoire for the dining room.

Rustic furniture bought at an outdoor Market

Every open air market has simple unstained furniture in cheap local wood (bois rouge) for sale. This furniture came in handy when the first guests announced their imminent arrival. These items are a good example of the second meaning of the word “beldi”. We are replacing this country furniture as well as the mattresses, which my husband’s nephew bought for them. The mattresses felt as if they were made of Styrofoam. Maybe they were.

The Night Watchman who also paints and restores furniture

The color scheme for the Riad came from the primary colors in the stained glass windows and in the zellige. The walls initially were painted in “Stuc de Venise”, an elaborate paint job that produces a mottled Tadelakt effect and a shiny, mirrored surface. Unfortunately, Stuc de Venise is fragile. If it cracks, it cannot be patched. We then tried another Italian paint that imitates Tadelakt and that can be retouched without repainting the whole room. That turned out to be prohibitively expensive. As I write, we are still experimenting to find interesting paint for the walls at a reasonable price.

In conclusion, let me pass on a lesson I learned in buying appliances, large and small for the riad: In Morocco, it is best to pay a higher price for top of the line American, German or South Korean appliances from a chain store. We have used the Comptoir Metallurgique, Electroplanete and Marjane. In buying electric/electronic items, avoid big souks like Derb Ghalef in Casablanca and Casa Barata in Tangiers. At a chain store, you can get a warranty, by taking your receipt to a uniformed guard at the reception desk who will stamp it. Do not lose that warranty. We have repaired or returned almost every item we have bought. The worst offenders were the Chinese vacuum cleaner that did not aspirate and the French coffee pot that did not drip.

THERMAL SHOCK

Few houses in Morocco have a central heating system or a central water heater. Those who can afford to heat their homes use split systems , space heaters or nothing at all. Most hot water heaters are individual units, which run on propane or butagaz. Electrical hot water systems are readily available but expensive to run. Moroccans just seem to endure the cold months with chimneys, makeshift heaters and heavy blankets. We have gone to fancy dinner parties in Moroccan homes where everyone kept on his or her coat. The prevailing attitude is that it is not that cold and that, in any case, this too will pass.

Our traditional Moroccan home (riad) is no exception to the rule. Most rooms have split systems and the glass roof over the atrium acts as a passive solar heating system. It is always warm in the upstairs living room facing the Mediterranean.. For heating the water and the steam bath (hammam), we have a huge boiler run on propane. The boiler is a Rube Goldberg device, which required written instructions at first to turn on and off. With the doubling of the cost of propane, most Moroccans run their boilers on timers set to turn on for short periods. We also have solar panels to heat water but, as we quickly learned, it takes a lot of sun to provide enough water for one bath.

When we arrived back in Tangiers in mid-January 2014, we found that we had no heat or hot water. The hot water was easy to fix. We just had to order two more propane tanks. Fixing the split system proved more difficult. As you will see below, the search for a heated bedroom turned into one of those Moroccan sagas. All ends well but it takes time and connections.

I first called the company that had installed the split systems. Perhaps because I started calling on the weekend or perhaps because the owner of the company did not recognize my GSM number, I was unable to reach him. His secretary took messages in fluent French but no one called back. Everything is personal in Morocco, even business. After five cold days, we drove for two and a half hours to Kenitra, where my husband’s nephew owns a heating and A/C company. We made phone contact and persuaded him to come to Tangiers with his wife and young daughter. By the way, the nephew has no heating and only intermittent hot water in his large, modern apartment. As the French say, the cobbler’s children always have the worst shoes. 

The nephew fixed all of the spit systems except for the most important one (to me) in the master bedroom. It seems that the unit was wired only for A/C, not heat. After driving the nephew and family back to Kenitra, my husband called the local company that had sold us the split system in the bedroom. My husband connected with the owner on the first try and he came out promptly to fix it. Unfortunately, every time we tried to use the split system after his departure, we blew the fuses in the bedroom. We called the electrician who could not solve the fuse problem but who rigged up an electrical connection to the solar water heater. This did not work. The water was hot in the tank on the roof but cold when it reached the spigots in the bathrooms. 

So we went to plan B. We moved into another bedroom with a working split system and called the nephew again. He advised us to replace the old American system in the bedroom with a new Korean one. As much as it hurt our American pride, we agreed to buy the Korean unit. 

The nephew set out with the new unit and two technicians at 6 AM one morning. Halfway to Tangiers, the driver grew drowsy and stopped by the side of the road to sleep. As all three men slept at a rest stop, a car sideswiped them and drove away. Then they got lost in Tangiers. By 10 AM, my husband and I were very worried. We finally reached them by phone and arranged a meeting point by the Tangiers train station. Once they arrived, I had to think of what to feed them. I had expected the nephew but not his assistants. I had planned to serve hamburgers because it’s the new craze here but I had just enough ground beef for three people. That was when I discovered the reason why Moroccans eat tagines—a little meat goes a long way. Our maid turned out a delicious tagine with meatballs and eggs that fed six people easily. 

The three men removed the old unit and carted it off to repair. They installed the new unit, which worked perfectly from the start. At last, we had heat in our own bedroom. Before I could wallow in this new-found comfort, the nephew issued a solemn warning: Beware of thermal shock! He explained that we had to keep the new unit at a fairly low level so that we would not be affected by the sudden drop in temperature. No problem. I just put on my overcoat when I leave the bedroom. 

  

Meanwhile, we have decided where to put the repaired split system. It will go in my husband’s study, which has become his important room, the local equivalent of the American man cave.