Mohammed and I spent most of the day tracking down a suitable apartment for me. We finally settled on an unfurnished for about $220 per month and the agent will furnish it for another $180/month. I should be able to move in this Wednesday, though it will take a few weeks for the majority of the furnishings to be installed, like washing machine, stove, fridge, etc. As long as I have a bed, I should be ok.
The whole process was very drawn out and a bit tiring. We went from one agent to another, looking at various furnished and unfurnished rentals. One very nice one we bargained for was quite huge, really, and even though Mohammed got the price down to my range, I ultimately decided, on Mohammed’s good advice, that it would be too expensive to keep heated in the winter. Yes, winters around here do get chilly, I’m told. Other apartments, though nice, were too expensive and haggling didn’t bring the price down very much. Some units were priced right, but were in very bad condition–one of them looked like a drug den. The one I decided on is on the 3rd floor of an apartment building with a nice view of the city. It has a couple of large rooms, a bedroom, kitchen, and bathroom. I’ll write more about it after I move in.
Working up a hunger, we stopped at one of the local shops and ate a lunch of mixed grill of beef, lamb and chicken with a delicious tomato and onion salad, washed down with mint tea. Lots of little cafes like that, mostly serving just beverages and pastries, line the downtown streets. Also, Morocco, like many other countries in the area, including Sub-Saharan countries, has a mid-day siesta, usually a couple of hours from 1pm to 3 or 3:30pm where almost all businesses shut down and everyone heads home to wait out the afternoon heat, which isn’t so hot here but the tradition continues anyway. Nice. There are also a few large supermarkets in my area, and I’m not too far from my work place. Perhaps too far to walk every day, so I’m thinking of getting a bicycle to get around. We finished the day with more tea and I bid farewell to Mohammed and a few other Moroccan teachers of English who had joined us, all of them very nice fellows. The generosity of Moroccans is exemplified in Mohammed; since I can’t move in until Wednesday and my hotel is booked from Tuesday on because of the king’s visit, Mohammed offered to let me stay in his apartment. The kicker is that he is leaving for Rabat on Tuesday for a couple of days, taking his wife and daughter with him. That he trusts me so much after knowing me for only a few days is awesome. I’ll have to remember to return his hospitality when I can. More later.