Volunteers
Wanted
to help us with general maintenance, animal care, building and decorating.
Work
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Roughly twenty hours of work a week are expected. The work scheduled on a week-by-week basis. We try to take volunteer's preferences (morning vs evening) into account as much possible, but can't guarantee it.
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The help requires moderate physical labour such as carrying building materials and digging, but we try to base the work load on your level of comfort.
Time
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Everybody's welcome to stay as long as one enjoy being here - we have lots of work to do for the next few years ^_-
Beyond that we are looking specifically for people who have experience or knowledge in
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dam construction
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building
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carpentry
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gardening
We love itwhen volunteers come up with their own ideas and skills. and appreciate help with
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our web-page
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photos
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marketing
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design and decoration
Food
As we get the best prices for locals we buy and cook food for all of our volunteers and guests. Naturally, everybody is welcome to see, learn and help out with this. Feel free to add any specific requests to the menu - usually it's round 5 jd per day depending on ones appetites
If you don’t want to chip in food, there is fully functioning kitchen for use
and shops in the village ~5 km from the place, we visit it quite often to join us any moment.
And it's an hour drive from Aqaba and sea - we go there once a week or so.
Events
We can also offer the place (camping, water, electricity, transportation and any specific help needed) for any gatherings, events or side project of your own.
Jafar used to run horse stables here but years ago after the Arab Spring when the tourist business went down he had to give them away. From there he got an idea to build self sustainable place that in any circumstances can feed it’s inhabitants.
No, we don’t have horses yet – now it’s goats, dogs, birds and a donkey.
But we can organize the horseback tour right from the camp
And goats appeared to be extremely smart animals with very strong personalities. One of them has a Facebook account, helps Ju to work out new Goat Trails and dreams to open "Koza Milk Bar"
Water Harvesting: Like many of the desert techniques in use today, water harvesting is not new. It has been practiced as early as 4500 B.C. by the people of Ur, and was used with much success in Roman times by the Nabateans, as well as many other people of the Middle east. Using the systems created by these people, we will dam the winter runoff water, and use it to irrigate the plants and trees. Long term volunteers coming in the winter have a chance to witness desert storm and the rest can scroll the page down to see the video.
Heating & Cooling:
Semi caves where solar heat is absorbed and stored by the rock. Walls thus acts as a heat sink, releasing or absorbing heat when the interior cools and heats up, respectively. They maintain comfortable temperatures all year round. More than this the one on the North of our place adjusts itself according to seasons - shaded from sun in zenith during summers and open for low winter sun.
Living Quarters:
All building structures here are designed to blend with and complement the natural environment
delayed until we finish building. Occasionally some bodybuilders can be found there with the shovel
building Self Sustainable
Community of J
Stage 1
Stage 2
Water in the desert?
currently we are building living quarters for people and animals
Stage 3
Food Production:
growing and preservation indigenous fruits, vegetables and herbs once formed an important part of the Bedouin diet.
Trees will be planted after the caravan-serai complex would be finished. Citrus trees, grapes, figs, guava and olives planted near bathrooms to use grey water.
Vegetable garden (its building process - on the video on the left) with fava beans, spinach, local beets, garden cress, onion, desert garlic, tomatoes, cucumbers, radishes, potatos and carrots.
Organic meat and dairy products from sheep and goats. Chicken for fresh eggs.
Herbs: such as mint, Basilicum, Sage, Lemon Verbena, Za’atar (Lebanese Oregano) and other lesser-known varieties like wormwood, Ballota and Felty Germander for Bedouin Tea.
Electricity:
We have 300 sunny days peryear and probablythe same amount of windy nights. Solar Panels and Vertical axis windmill are making a good combination.
only after water
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check our Facebook page to find out what's going on here
And what our volunteers see here
Erica is a travelling architect and engineer searching for inspiration and sustainable development. She found out how continuous life in the desert is possible, when volunteered at Malako