Adventuring into the unknown on a fully-loaded bike heading south from Toubab Dialaw, our most recent base in Senegal. My 24-year old son Viva and I love bike touring through new lands as a way of getting exercise, seeing the country slowly, finding beautiful hidden nature spots, meeting people along the way, and feeling fulfilled with the completed kilometers every day.
The Palmarin coast is an off-the-beaten-path destination only accessible by hard-packed laterite and sand roads with nary a Soul on it. The country is actually building an asphalt road here and so for now it is off limits to large amounts of traffic. Though the sun beats down there is a breeze that gently pushes us forward towards the ocean.
After several hours of dirt road we spot the whitewater in the distance, past lagoons of flamingoes. We stop for a nude sunbathe on a deserted beach before heading south on the beach at low tide. It’s quite a joy riding at sunset on the beach and not knowing where we will stop. As always the Universe provides and we spot what looks like a terra cotta-tinted cob ecovillage resort on the left.       We find eighteen adorable heart-shaped 25m2 bungalows in which the two rounded pop-outs are the bedroom and bathroom and a central square shape is the living room. The bungalows are iron oxide-plastered and have some simple symbols on them like “X’s” and “O’s”. Entering, the interior plaster is white with straw specks and I am smiling at the home-made shelving, bed platforms, storage holes, archways, sink holder and unusual windows, typical of cob structures.
To my dissappointment I learn that these beautiful earthen structures that look like original African dwellings are made with cement. Bummer. The fact that the rooves are flat and contained inside of the walls with spouts exiting them towards the ground is the hint that we are not looking at cob dwellings. However it is unfortunate that the inside is cement-based as well, and that the floor is bricks and not cob. Nonetheless it gives me much pleasure to see this alternative paradise in a home of earthen building, Africa. And inspires me for my upcoming ecovillage design project.
It feels like a gnome village with short arched openings to all the public spaces and between clusters of bungalows. In short it feeds the Soul which is half the reason for the mission I am on: “Feeding the Soul and Beautifying the Planet One Unique Cob House at a Time. For this reason alone I am grateful for the efforts made here by a Frenchman Olivier and his son. The coastline here is the quietest and most clean I have seen yet and Viva and I decide to hold a 3-day Vision Quest here camped in the shade on the beach, the whole place to ourselves. To be in Africa in silence is magical. Even if we do not stay in the bungalows, their visual presence brings joy and peace.

In 20 days 16 students from Europe, the U.S. and Senegal came together and became one loving building family spending 5 hours a day under the hot African sun mixing 24 batches of cob together daily to add 30 cm to the 40m2 3-room house located in Yene Kao, just an hour south of Dakar.  They came from all walks of life: Lena, the Austrian art history student, Morisha, the New-York based masseuse, Barbara, the New York former jazz singer turned wood jewelry artist, Lorenzo, the Sicilian raw vegan mountain boy, Bosco, the Dakarian civil engineering student, Saco, the New York-based Japanese musician and urban permaculturist, Beverly, the Santa Cruz political and environmental activist and Kira, the California outdoors sports enthusiast specializing in skiing. 

Within a few batches of mixing cob with their new Senegalese friends: Aziz, Wuz, Big Mamadou, Medun, Small Mamadou, Ablai, Mbarou and Oumy, there was no difference anymore, as always happens with cob.  The mud joins.  The initial separateness becomes moot and unconditional love happens. We are focused on raising a building together and with our bare hands and feet mixing and compressing the material, molding it, tossing it, placing it, shaping it, thumbing it, trimming it and starting over again…day after day…watching the walls rise slowly but surely. 

CHeck this out: https://youtu.be/6du4m7nATXQ

Each morning we arrive to see the good work from the day before, the walls turning into a house, “ndanka ndanka” or “little by little”.  Cob building is slow and satisfying.  You cannot put the walls up in a day, like in mainstream building, with industrial materials that will begin rotting within a short time because they don’t breathe and accumulate moisture.  Windows, shelves, altars and niches all go in along the way, and when the cob walls are done the walls are done:  the insulation, the structure and the surface.  Same with the floor. 

In 20 days, this talented group of new cob builders built 100 feet of 6-foot walls.  The original project was supposed to be half the length, for a 25m2 guest house.  Clearly we would have wrapped it all up with this power group.  But it wasn’t about muscle power, but rather chi, prana and “katan” as they call it in Wolof, the native language here in Senegal.  Not only was our group split evenly between Senegalese and “toubabs” (foreigners), but it was also split evenly between females and males, builders and non-builders (at least before we started). 

Whatever happened here, the chemistry was such that each day, despite the ups and downs of physical and emotional conditions, we were excited to build.  Today January 21, almost 7 weeks later (with at least 5 days and all weekends of no building) the walls are done.  This is fast cob and with the African sun setting our walls quickly each day, we were able to build 6 feet of wall, lay two coats of floor and put on the base plaster coat, all while having the best time ever!  I am so proud of this group and grateful to the hosts Hans and Roos, Oliver, Aziz, Viva and Sissy for all your work and support in the success of this project.

For all the photos you can go to the FB page, or the Gallery on this website!

On to the island of São Nicolau in Cabo Verde for the next long-term workshop  building a beautiful round cob yoga studio in the new Cachaço Ecovillage!

Yène Kao is a traditional Lébou fishing village just an hour south of Dakar where Hans and Roos, the Dutch hosts of CruzinCobGlobal’s first month-long cob building workshop in Africa, have leveled out the upper part of their plot to build the first salvaged tire foundation/cob and sandbag house in Senegal.

Prepping the tire foundation for cob with toothy laterite rocks

With 100 feet of cob walls built using their own ochre and brown clay soils dug up to create their 10-foot deep septic tank and added to local sand and straw, the house build is a very visible model of sustainable locally-sourced and affordable construction for the passers-by to witness each day.  Hans and Roos moved to Senegal 4 years ago to create a non-profit called Studio Placemakers, in which they team up with locals to create attractive and artsy functional public spaces from abandoned and unkempt land.  The building of their house is an opportunity for Senegalese and foreign students to come together and learn cob building while erecting the walls of their house.  The tire foundation was built the week before the cob workshop began by Ecomen 3000, a local non-profit that has trained people to build tire foundations all over Senegal.

All the students coming from Europe and the US are living in two rented houses right in the middle of Yene Kao, right on the beach, and each day walk to the build site after breakfast getting ready to make their 6 daily batches of cob with their Senegalese counterparts.  Everyone is new to this material, even the Africans,

The Afro-American Cob Dance

who have forgotten the art of earthen construction through the last few generations and are amazed at how hard and simple the cob is.  Yesterday was our second day of wall building and it seems everyone is getting it quite quickly.  The 7 foot walls will go up quickly with this 20-people strong workforce, the hot and dry climate and the quick-drying mix which is rock hard after only a few days of drying.

Early morning run below the gorgeous ochre, orange, red and purple Gareye cliffs

Each morning at 5am the Imam prayer calls from the beachfront Mosque wake me to my meditation time.  Sounding like Sanskrit mantras, the repetitive chants are a soothing reminder of Gratitude and Love for the day to come.  Early morning workouts on the beach are communal and I am met by the other healthy bodies jogging back and forth on the sand in their soccer garb as I spread my yoga mat out to welcome the morning in Africa.  The big yellow disc rises over the land behind me highlighting the palm trees shading the village houses.  The small and large children call out their morning greetings: “Toubab! Toubab! Ça va?” “Oui, ça va bien. Nangadeff?” “Mangui fi! Yanguisi jam?” “Jama rek”….and on and on.  Greetings in Senegal are indispensable.  They are a sign of spirituality, education and politeness.

At 8am Sissy has the breakfast ready that will launch our day.  Watermelon, rice cereal, round Moroccan bread, local exotic baobab, green lime and cashew apple jams decorate the morning table and welcome us to a new day.  The Tai Chiers arrive and soon the long wooden tables are a bubbly atmosphere of laughter, stories and happy smiles.  Oliver calls the warning bell and at 8:50am more or less we are off to the site across the road,  where we meet up with our Senegal counterparts waiting with big welcoming smiles.  Sometimes we have to remember we are in Africa because we are a little bubble of a family enjoying our learning vacation here in Senegal.  Walks through the old village at night, down the beach or on the road through the line of fishing villages bring us back to the reality of Africa.  My favorite times have been when I am not visible and can watch the Africans in their daily activities without my presence interfering.  On two occasions I could not help but follow the African drum sounds at night and ended up once  in the middle of the whole village celebrating their Soccer Championship with IMG_5318wild drumming and dancing and another time watching a very whiny and endless Baye Fall chant accompanied by drumming and ritualistic stepping movements that went on all night.  I love those moments. True Senegal. True Africa. A lifelong dream come true.

I am so utterly proud of my 15 students who together brought into existence the most beautiful bathhouse I have yet seen.  With a blank and flattened slate of 25m2 atop a steep hill hidden in the woods to begin with, we spent the first few days before the course began emerging a unique triple circle design based on sacred geometry

that would enclose the compost toilet in the southern circle, the shower in the northern circle and an attractive walkway between them with niches, arched shelves, a sink and ultimately a flower of life design in the center of the structure\’s earthen floor lit up by the oculus at the center of the hexagonal roof structure, made from local eucalyptus roundwood branches and small trunks.

We began to dig the trench on Day 1 for the next 3-4 days and then used the large local rockpile from a torn down old house to build the foundation with hydraulic lime and sand mortar.  The rocks were walked up a steep path one at a time by our burly rock crew Viva, Sylvain, Normunds and Greg.  Sylvain from Fuerteventura led the rock wall building which took the next 4 days to complete.

When the lunch gong rang, relief filled our well-worn bodies, ready for some  luscious vegetarian fare cooked up by the Molino staff and work trade crew, a variety of home-grown veggie specialties to titillate our taste buds day after day.

As we relaxed around the shaded wooden communal eating area, filling our tummies to happiness and recollecting the morning hours…the siesta hour called us to the hammocks, chill spots, tents and beds, giving great gratitude for the long-standing southern Spanish cult of downtime for the next 2-3 hours, which grew smaller as the month advanced and the ends of the wall called harder.

Afternoons were also beach time, yoga time, massage time, music time and building time.  Perfect weather spoiled us the whole month and the ocean temperatures concurred at 60-65 degrees F.  Excitement set in when it was finally time to start building niches and bottle and arched windows, sculpting and when Jamal arrived to lead us in the Tadelakt process to seal the bathroom and walkway walls.  Finally a pause from the cob day in and day out, though big rocks helped advance the wall a bit faster.  Now the artsy part, the beauty, the aesthetics for which cob walls and houses are so renowned.  Everyone picked a spot to work on and, as always, I saw the artist in everyone begin to blossom and fire up.  Sam and Sari went to town on the beautiful tall tree sculptures that grace the east entrance, merging the surrounding forest with the earthen bathhouse, to the point of embedding some real olive branches directly into the cob as the continuation of the cob trees. Goretti created her own version of tree on the northside, while the westside entrance welcomes you with bottles and the Molino logo \”Head, Hands and Heart\” encrusted into the cob with special local brain-like rocks, a handprint, and a heart rock.

The last few days brought us happily to experiencing the wonderful pleasurable earthen plaster made with local horse and cow poop, the green onsite clay, fine sand, and fine straw.  A totally different feel than the tadelakt lime-based plaster which, with the specialized thick cedar trowels and plastic trowel, results in a waterproof and breathable ultra-smooth finish that you want to rub your face on.  The special Tadelakt finish is smoothed with a very polished green mottled granite rock.  Students got to experience both, each one having their preferences.

While we never got to put the roof on, everything was ready for the eucalyptus rafters and hexagons that would come on next.  Our days were full for sure, full of work, full of laughter, full of learning, growing, loving, deep experiences in the sweat lodge, around the fire circle, during mealtimes and in the final checkout straw pile.

Deep friendships always happen around cob, emotional release and lots of growth and self-confidence and empowerment, especially for the Earth Goddesses.

Thank You El Molino for hosting us and Thank You to Samantha, Sari, Greg, Roberto, Eduardo, Fran, Sylvain, Normunds, David, Mano, Goretti, Laurie, Samuel, Viva, Johnny, and Jamal…best COB CREW ever! Good luck with all your endeavours and may you spread the COB wherever you go!  You are always welcome to come assist or take another workshop!  LOVE LOVE LOVE!!!! See all the photos on Cruzincobglobal\’s Facebook page.