Moroccan essential services - great response time.

Probably the worst nightmare for any builder or renovator is a broken waste-water pipe. In our case the nightmare was even worse as it was situated on the small lane called "The hill of mice" which is several metres above our courtyard.

The first indication was the smell. Then a trickle of water, followed by a flood of about ten litres a second. Now given that it was a Sunday morning and we didn't know who or what services would be open, the outlook was pretty grim.


First we built a small spillway across the courtyard to a drain and then sent out a messenger to try and contact some local official. Amazingly within half an hour we had an inspector turn up followed some twenty minutes later by two strong lads from RADEEF, the Fez water and electricity authority.


The news was not good. The stormwater drain was not only totally blocked with garbage but broken and would require the street being dug up and that would have to wait until the morning. Driven out by the smell, I was forced to go and watch the World Cup final and have a beer.

Residents from the Hill of Mice watch the work
In the morning RADEEF turned up and within two hours had completed the work in front of an enthusiastic audience of locals. Later the courtyard was cleaned with highly chlorinated water, incense was burned and now the entire place smells fine.

Our thanks to RADEEF. In Australia we would have still been waiting for the council to call us back.

Tags: Morocco Fes, Maghreb news