Volunteers' blog

Linda Anderson. Wannabe Moroccan Chef. Dishwasher. Gardener – especially good at hacking up the ground. Sander. Painter. The second opinion.

What we thought would be a quiet week without the girls turned out to be full of the extraordinary happenings of the house. We set off on Saturday – a little late due to bad weather – but we hit the ground running in Marrakech. After a five hour stint in the medina (fun as a tourist, but when you have serious business to attend to…) we had stocked up on most supplies for the house. We had a quick lunch stop, followed by a dual assault on Marjane to buy the last of our requirements.

Exhausted, we headed home at 9pm, dumped everything (as in a full ute load) inside the front door and then headed to bed.

The next day it was time for business. Latifa set up the kitchen with all of our new plastic ware to house the dry grocery items. Besides that, we had been promised that a number of tradesmen would drop by to assess the work, but when this hadn’t happened by 2pm we did what all women would do – we spent two hours in the hammam instead.

On Monday morning, the hard work began. We have been stripping back walls and cupboards, then repainting them. We have had two men helping us with all of this (one is Latifa's cousin), as well as installing light fittings and bathroom fittings. We have finally started our garden and we have installed a new washing line on the roof to fit all of our clothes and sheets. A mammoth effort, but the house is getting in shape for our first parent’s open day since the big opening.

PS - you might notice that I feature heavily in this edition. I am great, but it's not just that. Latifa now has a camera! So, she is happily snapping away and is sure to keep an excellent record of ALL happenings in the house!