I can only say again and again and again, that being up here in Loubar is simply a joy, there really isn’t anything about this building process that I am not enjoying….tho that is not to say that we re without problems.

Apart from my attempts at amateur architecting, of which there is plenty more later, one of the issues we are facing s the number and size of the rocks that still lie within the perameter of the build. Of course it should be noted that Ghalli took a 12 kilo hammer to a giant rock that, 3 months of smashing day in, day out (have you tried to hit a rock with a 12 kilo hammer? I managed 3 hits and had to stop…Ghalli kept it up all day, every day for 3 months) later, became his house.

No such luck for me, but what we do have is very friendly neighbours who simply turn up and have a go. As such here’s Adel Ali, who dropped in between field visits to spend a few hours banging away at one massive rock we had…I watched in awe..and the hope that he wasn’t going to pass the hammer over to me!!

The new masons are also proving to be an absolute godsend. All three are old veterans of building with rock, something of a dying art. Most houses are built with bricks, which is pretty quick if somewhat useless in the relatively extreme hots and colds that characterize Loubar. The thermal mass of rock is brilliant for regulating internal temperatures and the demands of building with rock require special skills…yes of course I stand in awe watching them all.

The walls on the lower house have now almost been completed. I’m not sure of the brick work around doors and windows, but feel I can change this once we get roof and walls on the main house…which is the aim for this year, thus enabling us to work through the winter.

But, I’ve made some BIG decisions on returning to Loubar, the main one being to get rid of the staircase that was going to run up to the main house through the lower house.

This will have a major impact on the whole of the rest of the house as new doors will be needed and thus the upper house will grow 2 m in width.

To meet these needs I’ve decided to employ an architect and engineer, both linked through Mustafa. If I’m honest, I’d forgotten that my “roxa”, authorization to work as a hotel, would require both signing off on the build…thanks Cezarina for reminding me…phew!

Despite tracing out the internal walls, there are so many details required linking top and bottom houses that, tbh, the decision to bring in an architect feels wonderful, even if it did take me a whole day to come down from 100,000 – 7,000 dhm for the plans and roxa!

Other new/s is the arrival of Ben, who’s come over as a volunteer. We first met on NYE at the party at Dar Finn.

He’s studying anthropology and I thought it would be interesting for him to see how people lived in Loubar and thus we agreed a food n board for work exchange…and off he goes…great. Not quite woofing or workaway, but tbh I don’t feel ready for them, but it…he works…welcome Ben!

A few little thngs have made a big difference at the camp.

Firstly was getting a “table” on the land…I can’t say how much easier life is with a table. But equally, after a hard days slog, having set up this bucket shower has meant that we can have a wonderful douche looking over the mountain and wow, do I feel better after it.

We’ve also started work on the first of our composting toilets. I’m using a book “The bare foot architect” which is brilliant and offers a number of insights in to all areas of building, one of which is the composting loos.

That said it took M’hd, Morad and I a morning planning out the CTs…let’s hope it works. The idea is to have the shower block as an area we can work on if we have blockages at the main house. There’ll be open to the air showers, with windows on to Xauen and the whole thing build so that the trees are part of the showers….ummm watch this space!

And finally there are the dogs!!!

Who’ve been something of a nightmare…of course Flynn has her taste for chicken which we are trying to deal with…th other night there was a huge to do amongst the dogs.

It was only the next morning when I saw the kitchen area in utter chaos that I realized that they’d eaten the two days of food that I’d hidden away in a box….then the other day they ate our dinner as we left it to cool and finally had our newly purchased round loaf, we were going to have for breakfast….and of course they destroyed our loo roll supply….bloody dogs!!!