At the oasis - Marrakesh

Riding her bike through the narrow, labyrinthine streets of the Moroccan city of Marrakesh, Patricia Lebaud seems a very long way from her sports-mad Auckland girlhood, spent swimming and skiing and playing hockey and softball. These days the former Glen Eden marching girl has her hands full welcoming guests to the Riad Mesc el Lil in the Mouassine quarter of the city. Marrakesh has been a favourite retreat of the rich and famous for decades – the Rothschilds, Paul Getty Jr and Yves Saint Laurent have all had houses there. They have been joined more recently by Richard Branson and Jean-Paul Gaultier, who has a house in the medina or ancient centre of the city, which was founded in 1062.

Patricia spent eight years in Sydney and fourteen in Paris working as a journalist.
There were another four years in New York Patricia moved to her new home in Marrakesh. But it proved too small and a month later she had sold it and was looking again.

At least forty other possibilities were inspected before she found what she wanted – a traditional riad with plenty of space. All the rooms were on one level centred around a central courtyard. There was an established garden with five orange and three clementine trees, an alabaster fountain, huge old cedar doors and shutters (hidden behind layers of dirt and paint) and original black and white tiles in good condition. Though the interior walls were covered up with tiles, the kitchen was non-existent and the chimney coated in grime, the house appeared to be structurally sound.

In Marrakesh you must expect the unexpected, says Patricia, and that certainly proved true in the months that followed. It was the start of both a dream and a nightmare.

Patricia’s boxes and furniture were transported by donkey and cart (the only feasible transport in such narrow streets) and she began ”camping” in what was to become the salon, with a new refrigerator and a few possessions.

“About a month after moving in, when I was sleeping in the salon, my guardian angels urged me to sleep in another room,” says Patricia. She did and the following day that whole side of the house collapsed, terrace and all, leaving a three-sided riad.

Weeks were spent removing rubble by hand and donkey, then an engineer was brought in to stabilise the riad and start rebuilding. “And that’s when the problems started,” she says. “He was a charlatan.” There was a sit-in by the engineer and his colleagues and the painter threatened to wreck the friezes.

Doors and shutters that had been sent off for stripping, along with an advance payment in Moroccan dirham, went missing and were finally retrieved (still unstripped) with the help of the French consul general. Sewerage pipes had to be laid around the riad and a huge pump installed to link up with the street sewer.

Despite all the traumas Patricia remained resolute, her sense of humour intact … just. “The worst part was at night with a candle, no bathroom and no one to laugh with or share the day’s events with.”

She has had support from local tradesmen, particularly Azziz, a third-generation plasterer, and Ahmed, the tiler who did all the zellige (mosaic tile) work.

“I loved the creative side of restoring and working with the plasterer, designing the zellige showers, creating furniture, painting,” says Patricia.

All the rooms, including the three guest accommodation, look on to the central courtyard where lanterns custom-made by Jamal – a master metal worker who has his atelier in the souk (market) – cast abstract blue and green patterns on the house’s white facade.

Work on the riad is an ongoing project – the unfinished roof terrace was put on hold when Patricia took time off last year to visit her mother in New Zealand – but it is very much open for business.

After breakfast Patricia takes her guests through the warren of narrow streets and bustling souks. They learn to dodge the donkeys, carts, bicycles and mopeds – pedestrians don’t have right of way here and the mopeds don’t have brakes. Everyone’s in a hurry and trying to pass at the same time – it’s chaotic.

One day in the souk two ancient Berbers,dressed in hooded brown djellebas,One were leading a young cow by a blue and white cord. They walked slowly through the crowded marked as if on a mountain path. People stopped and silently let them pass. As Patricia says, expect the unexpected.

Finding your way back to the riad can be a challenge in Marrakesh. The narrow streets and alleyways look the same and houses are hidden behind high unrevealing pink walls distinguished only by their entrance doors. Then the children in the street recognise you.” Ah, Par-tree-sha,” they say – and lead you back to the Riad Mesc el Lil.

Inside, all is calm and quiet – a green oasis in the middle of the medina where orange trees and jasmine provide shade and fragrance, the cats sleep all day and the tortoise is always on walkabout. The Moroccans have a saying: “Europeans watch the time. Here, we have the time to watch.”

Story: Jean Wright Issue: August 2006 Photographs: Pierre Restoul