I think what keeps me so 
fulfilled in leading these workshops and builds and what keeps people coming is the “one heart” community that is created, nurtured and cherished from the beginning. The first giggles and smiles appear on people’s faces from the moment they
touch the mud, roll up their pants and stomp in their first squishy, welcoming cob burrito. No matter where in the world, I am learning, the results are the same. And what a joy to see international groups, language differences notwithstanding, singing and dancing together like kids again as they do the cob hug circle dance I’ve seen time and time again. I mean look at their faces!!!!!
The Fuerteventura Cob Workshop was unique in that I arrived to a partially-built gorgeous rock house that would require cob fill-in.
Yeah! Something new and different, yet the walls were 50cm thick!!!! Yikes!!! And we were destined to finish in 2 weeks, the walls that is. Sylvain and Miltiade had gone for the old-fashioned Euro-style thick-walled look. We dubbed it the “Rock’n’Cob House” and ploughed forward with hungry motivated 
cobbers-to-be. Luckily the warm windy weather that dominates on this island would allow us to go up 30cm a day if we so determined to. Anaïs cooked up the greatest menus 
which added to the motivation. As usual our students were from all walks of life: surf instructor, mason, biologist, administrator, Reiki healer, masseuse, conventional builder, pre-school teacher, organic farmer and recycled bag maker.
During our one-week workshop we were treated to the first August thunder and rainstorms in 100 years! Shocking, yet everyone got a chance to see COB in action! Yup, that’s right, it gets HARDER after it gets wet and dries again. What? Yup, those clay-sand bonds tighten up with each evaporatory event. Touch it!
Our second week saw a small, hard-working and very committed group of student builders and this nugget got really tight. Showing up at 8:30 on the dot while Claudine was still makin’ it to the site, they rolled out those tarps, got the cement mixer—-oops, I mean feet warmed up, and off they went getting the first 6 mixes done. 
Truth is we did try out some larger-scale cob production mechanical equipment that was handy on the farm. Miltiade was especially motivated as he would be left to finish the tops of the walls alone with his children Loic and Anais. The final verdict was that the human hands and feet were fastest and best….yet in order to ease up on the heavy work we let the cement 
mixer do the mixing as we hosed down and watched it go round and round. The tractor never quite got the mix perfect and then scraping it off the tarp or ground ended up making the whole thing take double time.
In the end the LOVE among this group of novice builders became so STRONG that tears were almost shed in saying goodbye, though we all know that it’s never GOODBYE with COB…just until the next time. Oh and thank you Loïc for documenting the whole two weeks in time-lapse which I will post a clip preview of on the site. Stay tuned for his full-length instructional and time-lapse video to come of the workshop, en español and in english….of course!
