Feb 2010 Leaving Fez...for Haiti..but the build goes on

Here you are Finn, begining the roof garden at Tazi.

Quick one here Fin before I go…..

Go? Yes, go, my boy. I’m sorry but daddy’s going away for a few weeks. There’s been a rather big earthquake in a country called Haiti and it’s a bit of a mess. An earth quake is when the plates that make up the earth move, it sort of does a bit of a wobble and any buildings, roads or bridges, that aren’t strong enough, fall down. The problem in Haiti, is that it wobbled right next to the capital city, Port Au Prince, where millions of people live in cramped conditions in poorly built shanty towns. The result was that several hundred thousands of people died and many more were injured or made homeless. It sounds as if this is going to be a huge emergency response and thus I’m going out with the BRC, whom I trained with a while ago.

House destroyed in Haitian earthquake.

I’ve tried telling you, saying I’m going to work and I won’t see you for a while. You don’t really understand now, but I hope you will later. It’s not a long term thing, but I’ve got skills that can make a difference and I feel a sense of moral obligation to do my bit.

Apart from that, we also haven’t earned any money for ummmm, years, and thus we could do with some income, if for no other reason than to pay for the holiday your mum and I so very much need.

Mummy taking charge....Plus ca change!
Thus whilst I’m away, please do your best for mummy and help her with all of her work which will include trying to get our authorisation ready to complete building on Tazi, the hotel and finishing 813, so that Uncle Tim, Aunty Michelle and your cousins can come and stay in it.

So how are things going so far?

Plastering.

Arab begins plastering kitchen.

We should be quite close to finishing for our house. We started work with a new plasterer, he’s called Arab. I think I like him and his work seems very good. We’ll see. Of course, as with everything in Fez, as soon as you start a new area of work, there’s a million ways of doing it right and noone is backwards on telling you their right way, and of course that however you are trying to get it done currently, is wrong. Of course.

So there’s a big difference between gubs beldi and romi (old and new plaster), then there’s a question of whether you add white cement or not. Of course there is an issue with seiving so as to get out the black grains that are the residue of the cooking process that makes plaster here, and then there’s whether you should have one, two or three coats.

And then of course there’s whether you should start at all in the winter or wait until spring or preferably summer, when the plaster can dry immediately. We’ve started now because we need to finish as soon as possible. Obviously the plasterers we’ve asked have said that it’s no problem to get going. But then others “in the know” have raised eye browes and tutted…you should wait! I’m sure that back in the day, people who had houses built, had all sorts of time or seasonal constraint and I’m sure that it was a nightmare for them too, tho possibly if you were a big enough cheese (or Tajine!!) you could threaten any wayward builder with decapitation…Those were the days!

Tazi.

At Tazi we’ve been working with a different plasterer, a Mr Mohammed Twati…yes another Twati..alarms bells are ringing I assure you and added to that, he just won’t stop talking…chatter, chatter, chatter, chatter…SHUT UP!

Mr Twatty Plastering.
Anyway he’s done some work, it’s Ok, which is OK, but we’re thinking of stopping him and using Arab…unfortunately Mr Twati has also done some terrible work on the top floor. He says it’s because of damp that the paster is falling off, I would ask, why he plastered walls that he thought were damp.

Umm…there’s another story here!

Anyway, this is our nightmare, so we may as well enjoy it. We’ll see what happens…watch this space.

Transfer of Decappeur team.
Apart from that, at Tazi we’ve also now moved over our decappeurs who have more or less finished at 813. This is fantastic news and now we have our own team of decappeurs, tried and trusted (careful Tonto, let’s not get ahead of ourselves), who should be able to work their way through the hotel. At Tazi it’s more about cleaning wood rather than decapping, as happened at 813. Whatever, it’s a great step to be moving towards.

Zipping through the Zelig.

A view over a Zeligi's over shoulder

Mohammed and his brother are doing a great job with the new designs that Beccie has drawn up. It’s amazing watching them chipping diligently away, working on a collage, in negative. Of course every skill here is, on a good day, a wonder to watch, and perhaps that’s the test, if you enjoy watching your mwalem at work, it’s got to be a good sign.

The guys are currently moving on the top floor bathrooms and making wonderful progress. They should be finished soon, that will be a joy too……am I getting ahead of myself?

So Where Are We?
The point is that we look like we are moving towards a stage where the masonary should be finished…infact the majority of the current masons work is all about fitting the dubbler (that’s the wooden pieces of the steps).. Of course we are only currently talking about Tazi itself and not the extension..that’s another ball game and will mean us having to get a proper roxa from the baladier….umm, perhaps we should have done that years ago..and of course it will almost certainly lead to a legion of hungry mouths to feed, but we’ll see.

BUT, if we get that, then we can push ahead with the finishing of the extension..and the final furlong…WOW!

Which ever though, there’s still plenty of hurdles to get over yet…Woa Silver, not so fast!

A Zeligi at work.
The Zeligis are also moving through the house. If I’m not mistaken 5 of the 6 bedrooms should be finished soon. That can also be said for most of the landings. We’ve got lots of repairing to do in the the RDC, but still, this is all good news.

As I’ve said, the decappeurs are in and we’ll have a carpenter in soon too as well as bringing over Arab from 813, as soon as he’s finished…..it’s almost exciting!
813.

Beccie in with selection of yet to be placed doors...see if you can find them as you walk around!

We’re focussing upon 813 for the moment, in an attempt to get it finished for visitors in April. It was exciting to get going with the plaster and finally see some of these walls transformed, though by the time I left it was too early to really appreciate the changes this could make. It was also great to finally see the halka and the rest of the decapping/oiling completed. We finally managed to get another carpenter Nabil, whom we had finishing off work, which has included putting in doors in to our multitude of empty frames and finally adding the baguettes to the ceilings in the intra sol.

The Chimneys.

Chimneys in waiting.
Of course we’ve hit problems, most notably regarding our chimneys. We’d originally explained to the neighbours at the back of the house, that we wanted to put in chimneys. They agreed that this would be OK and as such we bought all materials and employed a chimney builder, of which there is only one left in Fez!

Just as we were about to start breaking in to the wall, our neighbour came over and told us to stop. It turned out that he’d spoken to his brother, who was co owner of the house, and he didn’t want us to work on our joint wall. This is to say a wall that is on their terrace, but is actually the wall of a room in our house and not theirs.

But we’ve discussed and confirmed this? Yes, but, as he now explained, I’m afraid that he won’t let you work on this wall. Well, that is he won’t unless you help him!

Oh yes, here it comes, I thought we’d get some of this…How much? I thought, please explain.

If you want to build a chimney, you must first find someone to buy our house at a price that will mean we both get a new flat in the new town. If you want, you can buy it yourselves!!!!!

We all looked at each other, open mouthed…even for Fez, this was out of space stuff!

Of course we’d already done a lot of work with this neighbour repairing walls, replacing broken drainage pipes etc and I made a plea to the guy who lived in the house who, other than now had been immensly reasonable.

It took over two weeks for him to give us the go ahead, and then only when I stressed that if he continued to act like this, not only would I complete the work from the inside, but I would make sure that anyone who ever saw the house would get the fullest report from me of the problems they’d face in rebuilding…which are numerous!

I left Finn with us having the go ahead, but the chimney mwalem being away and Razi having slipped away to another site. We’d found another mwalem…not a Razi I might add, but then it began to rain and rain and rain. And when I left it still hadn’t stopped, and the neighbours were beginning to stirr!

So yet again, watch this space!

Anyway Finn, it’s time to go. Like I say I’m missing you already..but remember whatever, wherever, whenever…daddy loves and misses you, but look after your mum, she’ll have a lot on her hands.