Missive 4 – 2011

Life has been a bit different over the last week. We waved goodbye to the builders on Sunday morning and they are all back in the bosoms of their families as I write. Richard was especially keen to get home because he was seeing his first grandchild for the first time. Cooper Wray was born a couple of weeks ago and although he was kept informed by phone and photo he was looking forward to getting the little bloke in his arms.
I have abandoned the Thai builders who are still up on the platforms plastering the joints in the ceilings we have put up in the dining room and the kitchen. There are a couple of jobs left to do – putting in some basins on our plumbing, putting up the last of the lights in the kitchen, and putting some lead sheeting on some roof joints. We have some Thai contractors finishing the walls in the dining room and then the windows will be put in. I will organize the Dutch team coming next week to do some painting.
In the meantime I have resumed my old seat in the office and I’m trying to do a few things that have been in abeyance since I left. I have been doing a bit with the asset register, drawing up some maintenance schedules, collating some feedback information for the sponsors of the Year 10 kids attending the Kanchanar school and trying to get my head around the financial management stuff which has been rolled out on a new version of MYOB. Sounds exciting doesn’t it, but I have been enjoying catching up with where my “old” work is up to – or not up to as the case may be!
There has been a very exciting development here in the last couple of days. Bruce Garvie is a long term volunteer from Queensland and is very good with the kids, especially the boys. He has a background as a chaplain in high schools and as a Youth pastor. For years we have been praying for a man to be a role model in the house with the older boys. This has been a problem area for us, and the ladies who have worked there have found it very difficult indeed – teenage boys seem to be the same the world over! Bruce has moved into the house with Sand as his offsider and “official” carer. “Mum Bruce” just doesn’t sound right so maybe they’ll think of something else. Bruce is very difficult to say for Thais and what he gets sounds very much like “Boot”. Kampat who has labored there for 3 or 4 years has gone to look after the youngest group of children with a heartfelt sigh of relief. Bruce will be on a steep learning curve trying get his Thai up to scratch and Sand will help with some of that.
I haven’t said much about Sand in these Missives but now is as good a time as any. Chris has been a interested in Sand for 2 or 3 years (and vice versa) and the building team has been giving him a hard time about for quite a while – although the Thai girls give Sand heaps as well. Developing a relationship here is very public and there has been plenty of advice flying around for Sand and Chris. Despite this – or perhaps because of it! – the relationship has “moved to a new level”. There have been lots of hints about jewellery and many nudges towards shops that stock such goods, but nothing quite as final as that has occurred. Chris hopes to return in June or July maybe with Ruth and Murray – watch this space!!!
I haven’t mentioned one of our earlier social life experiences. We all attended a housewarming party for one of our Thai couples. Sun and Jip are wonderful husband and wife team – Sun is one of the builders and Jip looks after the guest/visitors’ house. They recently completed their own home, a beautiful place built of bricks and painted up a treat. Heaps of people come to a house warming and the hosts provide a meal. Canvas marquees are erected in the yard and we had “lap” (like mincemeat mixed with chilli although they had some that was not so hot for the ferengues who couldn’t cope), sticky rice, “som tum” (grated green pawpaw with tomatoes and chilli) and soft drinks to douse the fires. They wanted us to come and pray for their house so Rob did that. Part of the deal is you take a gift (usually money) so we pitched in a gave the cost of a kitchen cabinet which they bought the night before the housewarming and we were able to admire on the day. It is a lovely tradition and we were honoured to be included in their special day.
On Saturday just passed we had another celebration for Colleen’s birthday. At one stage we were going to take a drive to Phitsanolouk and pick Gedt up from her latest treatment, but those arrangements changed and instead we went up into the mountains and had an iced mocha and iced chocolate at a coffee shop. Rob loaned us his Nissan Tearna so we went in style. Our friend Alvin Tan (JoopJang’s sponsor) was here and it turned out his birthday is on the same day. Further to that, Suriporn, the trainee manager of the Pizza Company in Phetchabun also shares a birthday with Colleen. We have befriended this lovely girl over the last few years so we had a party at the Pizza Company with 3 guests of honour. It was a great night. We were very proud of Whun who sat next to Suriporn and helped us communicate with her. Suriporn’s English doesn’t go much beyond “Scallop marinara with cream sauce” and “salad bar” but we get along with her minimal English and our minimal Thai.
A few days ago we went to see Glom’s house – she is also building a house although she will still live on site except for her day off. So far she only has a heap of holes with steel ready to pour some posts but she is pretty proud of it all. Whilst there we went over the road to visit Mum Whun’s family, and especially to see her grandma who lost her husband last year. She is always pleased to see us and we spent a spent a pleasant half hour there eating tamarind and trying to chat. She is a tiny frail little lady but such a dear. The rest of the family were sitting amidst piles of tobacco leaves putting them on a stick ready for drying
Well, seeing as today’s news is tomorrow’s fish and chip wrapper, I’d better close. Not sure what the digital equivalent of that homily is – today’s email is tomorrow’s spam?
God bless
Ron


2 beautiful girls on a shopping trip to Phetchabun



Colleen, Alvin and Suriporn cutting the Swensons icecream cake


Iced mocha at the coffee shop in the mountains


Visiting Big Whun's little grandma

Missive 3 – 2011

Our time is drawing to a close and there is still so much to do – it seems to be the same every year. The verandah and walkway on the dining room have been concreted and the roof is nearing completion. Chris has been working mainly on this along with Boonsalit and Sun. Malcolm has been rewiring the dining room and putting in power points, lights and fans – and trying to do all this alongside the wiring Deo has done and keep the power on so we can use the power tools and the cooks can get the meals ready. Now the concreting is finished Richard and I are putting up battens in the dining room and kitchen ready for the ceiling. Cordless drills are marvelous for this and we have put in over 4000 steel cutting screws over the last few days. What isn’t marvelous is the little bits of hot metal that fall down from the drill onto your arms and down the front of your shirt. My chest looks like I’ve got a rash from all the little burn marks.
We’ve managed to get by without any serious injuries although we’ve had a couple of amusing near misses. Equipment is at a premium when there are several jobs happening at once so Chris was using a very decrepit old ladder. He got half way up and the ladder, true to the piece of rubbish it was, twisted and crumpled and landed Chris flat on his back on a sandy spot ready for concrete. No great harm done (except to the ladder after Chris kicked it clear into next week!). He did however fall on the new plumbing on the way down and snapped off all the waste pipes for the new basins so we had to dig it up and do it again. We then decided to get some new scaffolding particularly as we had to put up so much ceiling which is over 3 metres up.
And therein lies another story. We put the scaffolding up and started work on the battens. The cross bars stabilizing the structure are held on by little toggles and after moving the scaffolding around the toggles allowed the cross bar to slip off at one end. I had finished putting in screws at one end and moved to the other end and the whole thing collapsed underneath me. Platform boards, spare battens, screws and drill came down with a huge clatter. Because I was near a truss I grabbed hold of it and was left hanging there until Richard and Malcolm rushed over, grabbed my legs and lowered me down. No great harm done but we set about wiring all the cross bars so they wouldn’t come off again. Word spread like wildfire about this spectacular event and when the staff came to lunch there were many references to Spiderman!
Our social life continues apace and although we have finished taking all the staff out to the Korean BBQ we all went to a restaurant in Phetchabun for the great event of Pawinee’s birthday. It was a beautiful meal and all paid for by a friend of Pawinee’s who owns a hardware store and sells concrete. In 20 days in January she sold over 25 million baht of concrete (close to a million dollars)! On the next night she was having a dinner with some friends and because she knows we do a bit of dancing at Pawinee’s birthday (and on a few other occasions) she wanted us to come to partner some of her friends and particularly wanted men. I was happy to show off my skills with the Queen’s Waltz and the Military 2 Step but some of the others weren’t too keen. Malc said he had no long trousers (pathetic excuse!) and Richard went on a trip to Phrae (better excuse!). Chris was happy to take Sand (but not too rapt in the dancing part) and Eric was pretty keen. Colleen, Pawinee and Marni made up the rest of the party and in we went.
Again the meal was beautiful and then the dancing started. We firstly did some Thai dancing which involves a lot of specified hand movements which look a lot better when a girl is doing it. We then sat down and the ballroom dancing began and I prepared myself to teach a few skills to a few Thai ladies. They all hopped up and started on the most amazing ballroom dancing routines I have ever seen. They were competition standard and their simplest moves put me in the shade. A lady came over and asked me to dance and it took about 3 bars to work out that I wasn’t in her league. It turns out that they belong to a sort of dance club and many of them come from all over Thailand to do their thing. They took us in hand though and taught us a heap of steps and we had a lot of fun. Eric, for all his 83 years, was the star of our group and he showed off his “misspent youth” as he calls it.
Break for Weekend
And now, back after the weekend break we are flat out like a lizard drinking trying to finish the ceilings and the electrical work in the dining room. We went to Khon Kaen on Saturday armed with bamboo stakes and long tapes and on the new land we pegged out the buildings for the new orphanage. Everyone has been in deep discussion for the last couple of weeks about how many buildings are needed, what they will look like and how they will fit. This week Eric is up to his eyeballs in set squares and fine point pens as he draws up the plans. And we got 2 experts to make us some models of the houses – JoopJang and Giv are the “neat freaks” of the big girls’ house and do beautiful intricate work.
It is now firming up that the South Aussie builders will be starting the new orphanage at KK in 2012. Malcolm hopes to have the water, sewage and electricity services in place for the whole site, and then build 3 children’s accommodation buildings (one is 2 storey) and the dining room/kitchen/laundry. It sounds very ambitious for 6 weeks but Malc is hoping for a bigger team. If you know of plumbers, electricians, brickies, welders or handymen (or handywomen for that matter) then please encourage them to consider a very fulfilling 6 weeks in Thailand.
The blokes go home on Sunday but the blog will continue. Colleen and I are staying on until 9th March so put www.roninthailand.blogspot.com into your favourites.
God bless
Ron


Richard, Ron & Chris pegging out the land at KK



Ron & Boonsilit putting up ceilings in the kitchen



Tripping the light fantastic



JoopJang and Giv helped us make models for the KK plan

Missive 2 – 2011

I’m trying! I’m trying! I’ll just sneak in a blog every 10days or so – emphasis on “or so”! This year I have a number of people who have sponsored me for a day’s work so some of you have heard from me as I have sent emails and letters after the day’s work. We are half way through the building trip now and the shape of the place is changing as it usually does when we are here. We are putting a verandah on the front of the dining room and a quite tricky connecting walkway between the dining room and the big girls’ house. Two years ago we were debating whether to line up the new dining room with the big girls’ house or the old dining room. We decided to compromise and not line up with either. Now our walkway is wider at one end than the other – hence the trickiness.
We have our posts up, the beams and rafters are on, the renewed plumbing is finished and as I write Chris and Boonsalit are getting ready for the tiles, Malcolm is rewiring the fans and lights, Deo and Sun are putting up rafters ready for the ceiling, and Richard and I are preparing the verandah and the walkway for concrete. I have just finished a day on the jackhammer and shovel (as has Richard) so we were glad to hear the knock off whistle – or more correctly Malcolm yelling out “Pack up! Go home!” in his best Thai accent.
We have been blessed with continual mild weather and cool mornings. The Thais emerge all rugged up and rush over for a warming hug and to report how many doonas they slept under last night. Today was a bit hotter – just as the jackhammer appeared wouldn’t you know it!
A highlight of the last couple of weeks was a trip to Khon Kaen where, as most of you know, we have an orphanage caring for 40 HIV+ children. In recent weeks we have finally found some land in KK on which to build a new orphanage. Our current facility is a leased property (although we have invested quite a bit in it to make it suitable for an orphanage) and the lease runs out in two and a half years’ time. The site is beautiful with a couple of houses on it and a driveway of palms with some rice paddies at the back. Buying in KK is quite expensive – a million baht per rai (40 metre square) compared to less than 50,000 baht a rai here in the country at Phetchabun. There is about 9 rai there so is costing about $330,000. The first payment was made on the weekend that we were there – and a great step of faith is required to make the remaining payments each year from now on.
Malcolm has been busy with his design programme on his computer designing accommodation and dining rooms and Eric is drawing up the shape of the land so the buildings can be placed (just so he can get out of the jackhammer work I reckon – then again, at 83 that’s probably fair enough). We are all so excited about it that we are planning to spend the 2012 building trip at KK putting up the first of the buildings – or at least enough to accommodate the kids we have at the moment. The vision is to eventually have up to 100 kids there so the plans are being prepared accordingly.
It wouldn’t be a trip to Khon Kaen if we didn’t go to the Steak House and I reckon their steaks are getting better and better. Inflation has struck though and instead of “all you can eat for 99baht ($3.40) it is now 109baht ($3.70). We have a strange and mad tradition about going to the steak house – any first timers get taken by the hand and are run back to the car. The looks of amazement on the faces of the Thais as they watch this piece of madness is a sight to behold. Again in deference to age we thought we would give Eric a break and not subject him to something which might see the end of his days.
Colleen has continued to struggle with her very painful wrist but hopefully will be on top of it soon. She had an experience the other night which took her mind off it when she stepped on a scorpion in bare feet in our lounge room. No harm done – except to the scorpion who was dispatched very quickly. It was only 5cm long and only a baby compared to some real beauties we are uncovering in our digging – some of them would be 15cm long (including their tail). We haven’t had any encounters with snakes yet in our house but that’s normal for the dry season.
Colleen has started her English classes with the older girls and they have a good time together. She is especially pleased with our Whun whose English has come on in leaps and bounds. She has become quite a chatterbox in English – she has always been a chatterbox in Thai! We have had a few other teams passing through while we are here. One team, led by Paul and Sheryll Lanham of Nambour have been here every year that we have and we enjoy a great time with them. Every year Malcolm gets closer and closer to dumping Sheryll in the dam and she spends all year plotting revenge! Colleen has also been active “selling” child sponsorships to anyone interested on these teams.
Time to get this off to my son Andrew who kindly puts all this stuff onto the blog site.
God bless till next time.
Ron


KK land - looking back to the rice paddies (note eucalypts)


KK land - Ron & Colleen in the driveway


The walkway next to the dining room


Trying to keep up with the blogs

Missive One – 2011

The building team has arrived at Ban Meata for the seventh consecutive year and now boasts only 2 South Aussies, Chris Stolte and myself. Malcolm has collected a mate from WA, Eric Withnell who can lay claim to being the oldest team member to come – he is 83. We reckon Malcolm brought him just so he would feel better! Our final team member is Richard Wray from the Brackenridge Baptist team in Queensland and he is with us for the second year.

Our biggest hurdle in coming over was to get 2 ladders weighing about 20kgs each included in our luggage. We trimmed down as much as we could and Colleen only brought one packet of Weetbix. With some extra kilos from Singapore Airlines we snuck in under the limit and we were able to enjoy the curious stares as we wheeled the ladders through the airport.

Because the team was coming from all over we arrived at different times and finally were all together by midday on Sunday. With our precious ladders and all our luggage crammed into a mini-bus we had an uneventful trip from Bangkok to Ban Meata. And what a welcome we received! They were having dinner when we arrived and they all poured out of the dining room and swamped us. Every one of us was hugged again and again by 95 kids and 20 odd carers. For Colleen and me it was such a delight to be back with Whun again and we were amazed how much she has changed since we left just six months ago. She has grown taller, filled out and changed her hair style. She is quite the beautiful young woman and we are so proud of her.

Rob Dunk is still in England for his son’s wedding so Pawinee has carte blanche for any projects for us. We will be putting a verandah on the front of the new office and already have the holes dug for the posts. We will also finish the walls, doors and windows of the dining room, put on a verandah and join it with a roof to the “big girl’s house. In the meantime we are working on Pawinee’s place. Her beautiful house is slowly nearing completion and we are putting in the ceilings, concreting the carportand doing some retaining walls. This should keep us going for a week and then we’ll start on the other jobs back in Ban Meata village.

Some of you are aware of the story about little Gedt, an 11 year old girl who has been with us for about 18 months now. 6 months ago she was diagnosed with leukemia and at her age the survival rate is about 50-50. We are praying for a better outcome than that, but it has been great to see the great faith which she has faced her illness. She is currently here at Ban Meata but sleeps in a separate room and usually wears a mask when mixing with the other kids. Just today she was due for another round of chemotherapy and she travelled to Phitsanoulok (100km) to the hospital there, but, on arrival they discovered her blood count was too low for treatment so she had to come home again. I sat with her tonight and told her that many people in Australia are praying for her. If any readers have only just heard about this please add her to your prayer list. There will be a photo attached so you can see who you are praying for.

We have started on a plan to take all the Ban Meata staff out to dinner at a Korean BBQ and we had our first group on Friday night. The meal was wonderful and the Thai girls usually look after us very well – but none more so than Malcolm. They cooked his meat on the little BBQ’s, made his soup, put his food on his plate – I believe though he had to chew it himself! He helped out though when the time came for icecream. They have tiny cups and tiny cones to get it in (so people can’t be too greedy) but Malc managed to embarrass Air, one of the carers, by bringing her back an icecream cone loaded so high it was no mean balancing feat to get it back to the table!

We are in the swing of having “smoko” every morning and afternoon and we make short work of plates of pineapple, watermelon and green mango and jugs of cordial. Today we had our first plate of pomello and it was just beautiful. We have been blessed with great weather which wouldn’t be much over 30 degrees – I guess it will get hot about when we put the roof on the new verandahs over the office and dining room.
Spare a thought for Murray Stolte who is missing the trip to Thailand for the first time in 7 years after falling off a haystack and badly injuring himself. His son Chris though is having enough fun for both of them together and is really enjoying working with Boonsilit, Sun and Deo who became his mates when he spent 6 months here. And then there is Sand, one of the carers with whom he is particularly friendly – watch this space…….!

My goal (always a dangerous thing to commit to on paper) is to get the blog out about once a week or ten days so stay tuned.

God bless

Ron


Gedt without her mask and with her hair growing back


One of our Korean BBQ nights with the staff


Pawinee's house where we are working


Screwing up the ceiling battens (in a nice way!)