A Small Adobe House

A while back, I had the opportunity to visit an adobe home here in Marrakech.  The house was tiny, 4 rooms in about 400 square feet.  The was a bed room, a kitchen, and 2 salons. The rooms were spotlessly clean.The interior walls were all pale yellow.  In the bedroom there was a double bed shared by the parents  and a nine month old baby girl.  There was  an enormous, 3  door wardrobe.  The family's clothes were folded neatly inside of it, with suitcases and boxes stacked on top.

The other 3  children, a pre-school girl and elementary school-age son and daughter shared the 2 salons at night. The salons each had sectional sofas and tables for entertaining and dining. The sofas were covered in a  beautiful beige fabric with tiny lavender and yellow flowers. Carved scrollwork embellished the archway separating the two salons. 

The larger salon had a tv and opened into the kitchen. The kitchen had cabinets, a stove, refrigerator  and sink. A flower arrangement filled the display space above the kitchen doorway.

The  front  yard, another 100 square feet or so, was enclosed by a fence roughly 9 feet high. The dirt in the yard is constantly swept clean. This was a multipurpose area also. It was a play area for the children.  Clotheslines hung from side to side.   A walled off area immediately outside of and to the right of the front door  was the outhouse. Another  section of the yard  near an outer wall was partially closed off as an additonal storage and clothes washing area.

Outside of the  house and across the dirt road was a municipal tap that supplied clean  water for that house and its neighbors.

This family does not have a lot of money, but the parents and children are literate and well fed.  Their home is not an indicator of dire poverty; it reflects the housing standard of most Moroccans little more than a generation ago. As well as owning a modern cinderblock townhouse, working class families in the city live in either modern apartments or these older adobe homes.

 My companions  and I were there for a brief time, just long enough for coffee and doughnuts.  It was a little disappointing; the mom is an excellent cook, and her dinners are always memorable.