A 14-Day Failed Attempt at Building a Cob House in Morocco (2025)

Leaving Bab Zouina in Marrakech, I boarded a Supratour bus heading to Agadir, a city in southern Morocco. Although I was tempted to revisit the beautiful towns in northern Morocco, I had made up my mind that the main route of this journey was to head south. In my final days in Marrakech, temperatures had already reached over 40 degrees Celsius, making it difficult to sleep indoors at night. Heading north would have offered a more pleasant climate but would have delayed my journey.

Green Aka1, an organic eco-farm run by Moroccan sister Oumayma, was the only farm I could find south of Marrakech that accepted volunteers. This newly established farm, just a year old, came to be after Oumayma quit her city job and volunteered on farms in Turkey and Southeast Asia. She then returned to her father's hometown, Agadir, where she and her family bought this garden. She now lives there and manages it with her parents and two younger brothers.

Currently, Green Aka has only one concrete bungalow and no other buildings. Due to the extreme heat inside concrete structures during summer, Oumayma and the volunteers all live in tents outdoors.

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Green Aka originally had a large number of olive trees, but due to the extremely hot climate, there was no harvest last year. Our tents were pitched among these neatly arranged olive trees struggling in the drought.

Indeed, besides the heat, drought is another major challenge facing Green Aka. Unlike Bab Zouina with its abundant groundwater resources, Green Aka has scarce groundwater. A well needs to be drilled several dozen meters deep and cannot support the large number of fruit trees, vegetables, and daily water use on the farm. Of course, with rain falling only twice a year here, collecting rainwater is out of the question. So, Green Aka currently relies mainly on public water supply.

Oumayma is very conservative with water use. For example, the farm's outdoor dry toilet/shower, whether it's the washbasin or the camping shower bag, needs to be manually refilled with water from the main house's tap.

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Having just learned about eco- construction in the mud workshop in Marrakech, I arrived at Green Aka at an opportune time. Oumayma wanted to build a small mud house that could accommodate two people before August. The reason was that temperatures here can reach 50 degrees Celsius in August, and Oumayma, who had decided to travel south to Senegal with me, wanted to provide a cool shelter for her parents who would remain on the farm. Perhaps it's the East Asian gene of filial piety, but I was extremely touched by Oumayma's intentions. I was determined to do my utmost to help realize her wish.

We had less than 14 days and needed to start the project immediately. Oumayma was slow in decision-making and had less construction experience than I did. As a result, despite being a novice builder myself and the youngest among the volunteers, I was pushed into the position of project supervisor.

With a mix of excitement, nervousness, and unease, we decided on the location of the cob house together with Oumayma's family, and subsequently determined its shape (a rectangle with rounded corners), area, and roof style. After setting up the framework using extremely low-tech methods - tape measure, rope, tree branches, and charcoal - the other two volunteers, James and Alex, began digging the foundation under guidance.

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Meanwhile, I started to worry about collecting the materials needed for the foundation and walls. While Green Aka's land was rich in clay and stones, sand, gravel, and lime all needed to be purchased separately.

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The foundation is one of the most crucial parts of construction, requiring a mixture of lime and gravel as the mainstay of waterproofing performance. With the help of Oumayma's 18-year-old brother Ryan, we quickly mixed the lime concrete for the foundation, while also using up all the available lime.

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It wasn't just lime; I discovered that Green Aka lacked many construction tools. There were no hammers for trimming bricks and stones, nor rammers for compacting earth; there was only one shovel and one wheelbarrow, severely limiting our work efficiency.

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On Wednesday afternoon, the second day of construction, I accompanied Oumayma to a local village construction material store, a 10-minute drive away, to replenish materials. We brought back several bags of fine sand and gravel in a small car. Surprisingly, powdered lime couldn't be found anywhere in the village. We pinned our hopes on the big market in town on Thursday.

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After spending 350 MAD on a second-hand door frame, Oumayma found a blacksmith and bought a hammer.

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Morocco is extremely lacking in wood resources; we barely managed to find a few vertical wooden boards in one of the few local lumber stores.

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And at the round wood and bamboo store, we selected beams and insulation layers for the roof. Morocco only has thin bamboo, with none suitable for load-bearing.

We couldn't find powdered lime, rammers, or wheelbarrows. The busy and crowded town trip searching for building materials, coupled with the high temperature and dry climate, and coinciding with the first day of my menstrual cycle, left me weak and anxious. With a splitting headache from the pressure, I accidentally spilled the water jug I had just filled, and the taut string in my heart snapped. I started crying on the spot.

Alex, the gentle and chill big sister among the volunteers, quickly ran over and hugged me for comfort. Everyone was stunned by my sudden breakdown and asked if there was anything they could do to help.

Knowing this was just my's old habit of unnecessarily adding pressure on herself and a common occurrence during periods of emotional instability, I wiped my tears and said, "It's okay, don't worry. I just need a hug..."

Then everyone hugged me into a big ball.

Although the conditions here are very harsh, thankfully Oumayma and all the volunteers are very caring and warm. Any doubts or pressures can be openly shared with everyone.

Afterwards, I felt much more relaxed. With only block lime available, we couldn't proceed with the foundation construction. Fortunately, Alex enjoyed the process of manually crushing and sieving the lime stones without complaint.

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While transporting stones from the big pit, the wheelbarrow broke down for the first time. This old, only usable wheelbarrow broke down more than 10 times throughout the entire construction process. At first, we made a big fuss about it, but in the end, we lost interest even in complaining.

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During the construction process, all procedures were interconnected. No wheelbarrow meant we couldn't replenish or conveniently mix materials, and having only one shovel meant only one person could be responsible for transportation. Despite there being only four of us, we surprisingly encountered situations where people couldn't help because of a lack of tools.

Nevertheless, we slowly pushed forward with the construction.

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On the lime concrete foundation made with manually crushed lime, I used the dry stone wall technique I learned in Japan to select suitable stones and stack a layer of stone base as a connection between the earthen wall and the foundation. Although I wanted to stack two or more layers, due to the lack of time before Oumayma's cousins came to help on Sunday, and wanting to push forward with the cob wall construction as much as possible when more people were available, rather than being stuck forever on the foundation, I had to choose to give up on multiple layers of stones.

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From Oussama, the eco-architect originally from Agadir, we learned that it was impossible to find rammers in Agadir and they could only be custom-made by blacksmiths. Oumayma and James tried to make rammers with cement, but the highly brittle cement crumbled at the first strike on the ground. Indeed, wood or iron is still necessary.

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On Sunday morning, we propped up the old second-hand door and embedded it in the lime concrete.

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In the afternoon, Oumayma's cousins arrived. Oumayma's large Moroccan family can gather up to 60 people at once, and just a call in the family group chat would bring many brothers and sisters responding. Every Sunday, the family has various activities, big and small, and this Sunday was to come to Oumayma's farm to build cob walls together.

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Although none of them spoke English, they all enthusiastically followed Aunt Oumayma's instructions to carry out the "assembly line" work. The carefree boys were responsible for transporting clay and making cob.

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The delicate girls were responsible for fixing the cob on the wall.

By evening, everyone was dancing to afrobeat music while building, creating a lively atmosphere. Unfortunately, even with a large group of people busy for half a day, the construction of the cob wall didn't progress as expected. At this point, a calm voice in my heart told me that it was impossible to complete this house in just 14 days.

But concern for Oumayma's parents prevented me from admitting this desperate thought. Instead, I racked my brains trying to find ways to work "more efficiently" for longer hours. I began to shorten the construction period at various stages (and started to feel ashamed for accepting shoddy work); and while waiting for the cob to dry, I introduced the making of adobe bricks.

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Compared to cob, adobe doesn't need to be mixed with sand, and it's easier to shape and keep vertical when laying bricks.

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In temperatures over 40 degrees Celsius, the earth bricks dried too quickly and were prone to cracking, so we provided them with a shaded shelter.

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When the cob wall reached a certain height, I started using a level to check if the wall was vertical; and used a saw knife for appropriate trimming.

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By arranging adobe bricks in different directions for layer, we increased the strength of the adobe wall.

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In addition to adobe, we also started thinking of ways to stuff various recycled fillers into the wall to speed up construction. The bar owner in town gave us many empty cans and glass bottles for free, which we filled with sand.

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Introducing adobe bricks and recycled materials like cans and glass bottles did speed up construction, but it added the burden of extra thinking. In the end, we found that stuffing stones was the fastest.

Our anxiety and fatigue even spread to Oumayma's mother. Usually responsible for cooking indoors, she also came to help mix cob and fill cans with sand.

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Adnan, a 17-year-old boy on summer vacation, was engrossed in researching how to create perfect cuts on glass bottles using the tools at hand, to serve as "transparent glass windows" in the cob house. Unfortunately, he couldn't achieve it despite trying all methods found online, but we applauded his spirit of exploration.

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Around the tenth day, we discovered that the surface layer of the cob wall had extremely severe cracks that were not present in the lower layers. Deep down, I knew this was the consequence of rushing the construction period - usually, the mixture of clay and straw needs at least one day of fermentation time, and adobe bricks need more than three days of natural drying before they can be placed in the wall. But we simply didn't have this kind of time during our construction. As a result, although the bottom cob was very solid, the cob higher up didn't have enough time to soak, leading to these cracks.

Although I knew this in my heart, facing this reality still broke through our exhausted psychological defenses.

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It wasn't just mental anxiety; physically, I was far outside my comfort zone as well. Moroccans' staple food is bread; breakfast is bread with olives or jam, lunch is directly eating Tajine (a traditional Moroccan earthenware pot) with bread. But the hot July harvest season had ended, green vegetables were dying, resulting in Tajine only containing root vegetables like potatoes, onions, and carrots.

Probably due to not being accustomed to the local conditions and lack of vitamins and sufficient protein leading to malnutrition and decreased resistance, I had continuous diarrhea and dizziness, unable to stand steady for these ten days. At first, I still had the energy to sing while building, but later I was basically falling into the cob in a daze, only crawling back to the shade when the sun became unbearable at noon.

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Oumayma's condition was also poor. Anxiety and overwork led to a decrease in her appetite and inability to eat; and the resulting nutritional deficiency prevented her from continuing to work.

On the morning of the eleventh day, Oumayma told me that after a night of internal struggle, she decided to officially give up on completion, wanting to spend the remaining time meticulously crafting the rest.

My tears came out immediately. What about her parents? Our original intention was just to provide them with a shelter that could withstand 50-degree high temperatures, for which I had done all kinds of shoddy work against my conscience. But if we couldn't even achieve this goal, hadn't I just been causing harm these past ten or so days?

If I had known from the beginning that this was an impossible project, I would have dug a wider foundation at the bottom, shaped a beautiful double layer of stone base, built 40cm thick walls... Every cart of clay would have been soaked in water overnight, mixed with sand and straw, and left to ferment for seven days.

All these important details, I had abandoned, because the only thing we lacked was time.

"But we can't fight against nature... We must admit that we can't do it," Oumayma said, hugging me.

"What did Oumayma's mother say?"

"She said that seeing us in pain also made her feel bad. She doesn't want us to rush the work. Although the 50-degree high temperature in August is very painful, we've already tried our best. We got through last year, and there will always be a way this year too."

Ah, mothers of the world, great mothers.

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So we spent a day just soaking and fermenting cob, and continuing to dry the adobe bricks we had already made.

The weather was very cool in the morning. Freed from the constraint of "must complete", we leisurely kneaded cob and shaped it. "I really enjoy the current rhythm, feeling like I've fallen in love with building again," Oumayma said happily as she poked an African map on the earthen wall with her fingers.

Her loss of appetite and my diarrhea miraculously stopped. The stomach truly faithfully reflects our emotions.

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On the last day, we tried our best to use up all the soaked and fermented cob, and before setting off on our southward journey, we happily took a group photo in front of the half-built cob house.

Under extreme climate conditions, lacking materials, tools, and manpower, we had made our best attempt. And from this construction, I not only gained experience in leading a small project, but also deeply realized that time is the most precious, yet most easily overlooked raw material in modern times.

Thank you to everyone at Green Aka for their trust and support, allowing me to gain irreplaceable valuable experience.

May all life be filled with peace and happiness!

Sunshine

July 31, 2024

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Green Aka’s Instagram page: https://www.instagram.com/green_akal

A 14-Day Failed Attempt at Building a Cob House in Morocco (2025)

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