Ron in Thailand: Missive 3

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