Everything Costs Something

Al Haour On The Way to Marrakesh 

 As I understand it, traditional Moroccan life centers literally and figuratively around a mosque. Five times a day, the call to prayer is broadcast from the minaret. The men stop what they are doing and gather at the mosque to pray. That boggled my mind. Five times a day, the men got together. That builds community. The women are more separated, however they use communal ovens to bake bread, and our guide Hicham told us that every village had a spot where they met daily to sit and chat.

Village Near Ouarzazate  

Pre-electricity, back when the muezzin actually had to climb to the top of the of the minaret and shout out the call to prayer, villages had a natural radius of how far the human voice can carry. Once that limit was met, a site for the next mosque was chosen, and a new village grew around it. Repeat, repeat, and the country is covered in small villages with a minaret sticking up in the center. Hicham said each village was about 200 homes.

Now the calls are amplified, with no particular concern of the aesthetics of black loudspeakers attached to ancient tiled minarets. Easier on the muezzin I guess, but fairly jarring when we were in larger towns with mosques every few blocks. Competing voices slightly out of sync.

Outside of Casablanca  

Can this small village model translate into modern life? As we drove from Casablanca, I saw groups of high-rise apartments, bedroom communities for city workers. Built by companies speculating on growth, there are still central mosques, but not communal ovens for women to gather at, not groups of men who meet five times a day.

How do you build community in condos? In my experience, horizontal communities lend themselves to meeting neighbors; vertical ones do not. Walking around a neighborhood, with or without a dog, gives us chances to interact. Elevator rides encourage silence. With the exception of the condo president, I do not know the name of anyone in our building. Even the members' meetings are handled by video calls.

On the other hand, living in our little apartment has been easier than dealing with a house and yard and perhaps more economical. Our monthly electric bill is averaging $55.00 ($29.52 while we were traveling!), and since we are renting, no internet, garbage, or water bills. Ditto property tax, and our property insurance was $800 rather than $1,800, which didn't even include wind or flood coverage. The monetary downside is that we are paying $2,250/month rent and not building equity. Now that I have 6 months of expenses, I think I can figure the monetary cost/benefit of renting versus buying. We have until December 31, 2020 to claim our homestead exemption and the portability of our low house valuation.

Should we look at small villages of about 200 homes? A couple on our Moroccan trip live in one in Oregon that was designed especially to facilitate community. Perhaps we can find something like that in Florida. Not at the Villages, which currently has 122,460 people living there, but maybe a townhouse community within a larger town. There wouldn't be a central mosque, but with a pool that calls to me.