Missive 6 - 2012

It’s a quiet afternoon at Phetchabun and I have put aside the dozens of policies, reports and proposals that I have been churning out for the last couple of weeks to catch you up with events and finish what will be the last blog. I’ve been flat out like a lizard drinking ever since I arrived at Phetchabun although I have managed to keep most evenings (well, late evenings anyway) free to relax in our house here. I’m getting through a few books and crossword puzzles and have just about worn out the 2 or 3 CD’s I’ve got.
We finished our time in Khon Kaen with a party on one of the slabs and we invited the kids from the orphanage, all the neighbours who have been looking curiously over the fence for the last 6 weeks, and the local businesses that we have been dealing with. We didn’t get very many neighbours but we had a good time and the kids danced the night away with the ever present music and amplifier. I spent the night with Pam curled up on my lap. She is recovering from her kidney infection but is still feeling poorly and soaked up the attention anyway.
We got most of the roof steel up and we had a team of Thais working on the blockwork of the first house, and the skeleton team left will get the roof on, see the walls topped and have the windows and doors in before they leave in March. As I was sitting back in the air-conditioned comfort of Rob and Pawinee’s car on the return to Phetchabun I reflected on which of the building jobs would be good material for that TV show “Dirty Jobs”. Would it be digging holes by hand (not enough power for the jackhammer) out in the sun for 3 days straight and struggling to get my shirt off to hang over a bush during smoko because it was so wet? Or would it be squatting in the sun with scream of the dropsaw and the stream of sparks cutting hundreds of lengths of steel to be welded into trusses? Or perhaps it would be bending over in the sun weaving 15 km of 6 metre lengths of 6mm steel into mesh and then squatting and tying the edges with tie wire? Whichever one wins they were all instrumental in giving us pretty impressive suntans and the Thais are greatly amused by our sock tans.
It is much less dramatic here at Phetchabun although today provided something out of the ordinary. We got word yesterday that a neighbour of Jip’s, aged 45, and in extreme circumstances of poverty (not helped by her husband’s love of the grog) was having a baby. She can’t care for it and asked us to take it. Last night she was waiting in Ban Klang (nearby village) for transport to hospital and although some people waited with her they eventually drifted off when nobody came after a couple of hours. Whilst on her own she had the baby, was losing blood, and passed out. Jip’s sister in law found her with the baby born but still attached. We were grateful that she found her before the ever-present dogs did.
This morning Glom got together some baby things and she, Jip and I drove into Lomsak to see the Mum and baby and have the baby signed over. When we arrived we found that the little girl was born with a cleft palate and had 6 fingers on each hand and 6 toes on each foot. The extra digits are a minor problem but the cleft palate means a lengthy stay in a larger hospital at Phitsanoulok (same hospital in which Gedt was cared for until she died). We are currently trying to organize daily care for her while she is there. Please pray for this little girl – she should have a name by tomorrow! [Stop Press: Her name is Hope because we believe she has a future and a hope in Jesus with us – she will go to the Phrae orphanage]
A wonderful sideline to this is that Pawinee, 2 weeks ago, shared a dream she had with Glom and Jip. She dreamt that someone put a baby in her arms and said that it was a baby from Ban Klang. The baby had something wrong with its hands but responded to Pawinee’s touch by closing its hand on hers. The baby also responded with its eyes but could not speak because something was wrong with its mouth. Pawinee is usually reluctant to accept disabled kids here because we don’t have the capacity to manage them, but she felt that God was saying in the dream that she should accept this child as He was giving it to her. For 2 weeks she wondered what all that was about and today she found out. One of God’s miracles!
Less exciting than all that but wonderful anyway is the time I can spend with our Whun and pi-sou (big sister) Why. Last weekend I took them into Phetchabun and after lunch set them to choosing some clothes as a belated Christmas present. After waiting for some time with my shopping trolley and still nothing chosen I said I would go and do my other shopping and come back. 20 minutes later I returned with my trolley full but Why still hadn’t found anything that she liked or fitted. She did make a choice within the next 10 minutes but then they needed a few health food supplies, like chips and stuff. It was their turn to suffer then as I went for a haircut and the lady who does it took an hour – she gave every one of my remaining hairs her individual attention – even though it was just a number 2 on top and number 1 for the beard.
We have enjoyed a string of parties with the big girls and boys where we get out the BBQ buckets and cook all sorts of meatballs and bits and pieces. One party was at Pawinee’s and the girls made little shrimp traps out of plastic drink bottles and put them in the dam. They collected hundreds of little shrimps which they put in a chili batter mix and fried. The shrimps kept leaping out of the batter so they had to pour hot water into their bucket to hasten their demise. I’m hoping there isn’t a horde of animal liberationists in my readership who will descend in wrath on Thailand to avenge this practice!
Richard Wray who came back to Phetchabun with us spent 10 days here and left for home a few days ago. He spent time fixing some plumbing for Kerry (long term volunteer) and installing a new water tank at Porn’s new house (Porn is one of the original workers here – some of you may remember the story of “hit it with the Word” and Porn is the hitter!). I helped Richard with some of this and we had a good time together.
Only 10 days to go myself now. I’ll be back on the morning of March 8th. As usual I’m looking forward to getting back home to Colleen, family and the rest of you, but I’m not looking forward to leaving my Thai family here. I may be repeating myself here but the Thais have a saying “song jai” (literally 2 hearts) which means you have your heart in two places. Colleen and I have found this to be so true and there will be a few tears when I leave.
Till I see you
God bless
Ron



Progress to the day I left



Pam snuggling up at the slab party



One of my exciting rows of holes




Hope - a precious little tyke

Missive 5 – 2012

Well, this may be the last one – at least from the building site. 5 working days and another 4 of us leave. There will be a small number staying on and of course our Thai blokes. Deo, Boonsilit and Sun have all left their families in Phetchabun and have been working here for 6 weeks or so. They have been back home for a few weekends but will continue to work here for several more months with a week or two off here and there. They have been sleeping outside in a tent and occasionally cooking over an open fire. They have their lunch sitting on the floor in the laundry and usually have a dish of som-tum (grated green paw-paw, tomato, fish sauce and chili) and sticky rice so sometimes I go and have a bit of theirs if the som-tum is not too hot. Next week when the “ferengues” leave they will move into the house. We invited them in this week with all the spare beds but Deo reckons the ferengues snore too much.
Speaking of losing sleep we have to contend with a bit of noise most nights and for that matter many of the days. Somewhere a couple of blocks away there is a loudspeaker that has long sessions of what are apparently community announcements and they turn the volume up to reach most of the community. I think there are some Council by-laws in Australia that prevent you from starting your lawnmower too early in the morning, but there is obviously no equivalent legislation in Thailand because at 6.30am most mornings there is a ute driving past in the street with a bank of heavy duty speakers announcing or advertising something. Fortunately it’s about time to get up anyway although they are no respecters of Sunday morning sleep-ins.
And then there are the monks. We were treated to several hours of the most awful caterwauling for about 4 hours on Saturday morning. When they excelled themselves with a particular ululation even the Thai blokes would mimic them. I’m not sure whether taking the mickey out of monks is culturally sensitive but we were all guilty of it that morning.
All of this pales into insignificance against last Saturday night. The local temple hosted a Thai kick-boxing tournament and a big stage production of dancing, singing and comedy routines. These are very popular with Thais and we have attended some in the past and they are quite entertaining. The stage is a huge affair set up like a rock concert in Australia – huge banks of speakers and enormous lighting systems. They usually have a singing and dancing male host and 18 or 20 dancing girls. The girls literally need a special truck to carry their costumes. They come onto stage with the most elaborate, gaudy, exotic costumes and do a routine. When they finish they go off and re-costume for the next routine. They may do this 12 or 15 times a show and each costume is as extravagant as the last. In between dances the host has a number of characters come onto stage and they perform all sorts of slapstick comedy routines which the Thais think is uproariously funny (even without the language it is pretty funny sometimes). They deliver an endless number of “one-liners”, each with a “kaboom” on the drums, and the Thais literally roll in the aisles at such witticisms.
All of this is great, but unfortunately it goes all night! Our Thai guys and our youngest volunteer (Josh Denison, 17, Brackenridge Baptist) went to enjoy the festivities. Those of us of more advanced years (the rest!) went to bed. We may as well have gone with them. The music and the singing was so loud it pounded away all night and you could tell when the comedy routines were on because of the “kaboom”. Josh gave it away at 2am, and the music finally stopped at 6.30am! – just in time for the ute! That was some concert!
So what’s happening on the building front. One of the houses is taking shape with all roof trusses up and Malcolm hopes to have the roof structure finished to be a pattern for the other houses. The internal walls will also be a couple of blocks high. We spent a lot of our time last week putting in 8 big septic tanks and plumbing each of the buildings we are working on into them. We have used perhaps 300 metres of 4” PVC pipe and goodness knows how many litres of pipe glue. One of my tasks in the next few days will be to put all the power, water and septic lines onto a map so we don’t lose track of them over the years.
Tim (Ireland) is an electrician and he has been connecting up the wiring for the whole site (over a kilometre of cable and conduit) so we have distribution boxes up at all buildings even before we have a building to attach them to. We have water to all parts of the site (maybe 500 metres of 2” PVC) and young Josh has served his apprenticeship as a plumber putting taps on the ends of all the lines. We are very grateful that we were able to hire an excavator and didn’t have to do all that trenching by hand!
I’ve mentioned before that we go into the Ban Meata centre a couple of times a week to have a meal with the kids. We have been concerned about a little girl (11 but the size of an 8 year old) called Pam who is struggling with a kidney infection and is quite sick at the moment. I have been sitting with her each time I’m there and tonight I fed her for a while. She has to eat so that her anti-retroviral drugs work, but she gags at every mouthful and is getting thinner and thinner. The hospital is apparently not keen to take her but she really needs to be there. After trying to feed her I sat her on my lap and she cuddled up looking as miserable as can be. At the evening prayer time we all prayed for her and hope that the hospital will respond appropriately at her next visit tomorrow. Please pray for her.
This must go or I will find more things to add. Next week I’ll be at Phetchabun and may well get another missive under way.
God bless
Ron



Plumbing



Keep an eye out on YouTube



Preaching

Missive 4 – 2012

What a week - and where to start! The highlight of last week was the pouring of the slab for the dining room/kitchen/laundry. It was a huge job with 28 truckloads of concrete and to get it done we had the first 4 trucks come through the gate at 6am. The whole pour was in jeopardy the night before because Malcolm had demanded chutes to get the concrete into the middle (the building is 16metres wide and 41 metres long), but they brought a tiny little one for inspection, and then a contraption made of cut down oil drums. Malcolm finally said “Find something or we cancel the order.” Then things really started to hum. They ordered a huge crane and a skip and that duly arrived at 6am. The pour went very well and everybody was suitably exhausted by the end of the day – so much so that the next day was almost a write-off!
The weekend was also a great highlight. The team decamped to Phetchabun in 2 buses for Pawinee’s birthday and housewarming. The buses we hire for these purposes are worthy of mention. They are a Toyota 12 seater and the drivers “pimp their ride” like you wouldn’t believe. They are pretty spectacular off the production line with intricately patterned upholstery on the roof, sometimes a TV, including one for the driver which pops out of the dashboard, lots of chrome outside and aggressive looking front-ends. Illegal in Australia, but popular in Thailand are lots of coloured LED lights in various places over the bodywork, including underneath and in the wheels. Most drivers have a multitude of stuff hanging from their rear-vision mirror, always including a garland of intricately woven white flower petals. These are sold, by vendors taking their life in their hands at many traffic light controlled intersections, for just 20 baht, and are a Buddhist tradition meant to add a blessing to the journey. The drivers also toot their horn as they pass the various temples to remind the spirits that they are passing by and to toss a blessing their way if they feel so inclined.
We received the usual warm welcome at Phetchabun and we dressed in our finery for the big party. Long trousers are expected for the men so a few of our blokes had to buy some especially. Some of our women also took the opportunity to go shopping with the good excuse of “not having a thing to wear”. Pawinee’s house was absolutely stunningly spectacular. The excruciatingly long time it has taken to get things right and to buy furnishings that suit has paid off. The end result is an elegance that befits a magazine showpiece. In fact, the Thai equivalent of “House and Garden” has asked to do a feature on it but I don’t think she’s happy with the garden bit yet so I’m not sure if that will happen soon.
The party had about 150 attending, including the big girls and big boys from Ban Meata. Our girls looked very beautiful all dressed up in their best and looked very much the young ladies they have become. We had some very professional Thai dancing by 5 girls from the school, one of whom was a Ban Meata girl, Brung, from the big girls’ house. Mum Whun was bursting with pride to see one her girls perform so well. Rob made a speech as did Thanakorn her brother. I wrote her a couple of songs and sang those and Malcolm followed up with a few words. Pawinee rounded out the speech making with testimony to how much God has blessed her and we all shared some of the huge cake. The food was typically Thai and just beautiful. We all sat outside at tables and the cooking team was stationed under the teak trees and presented the food, and the eating utensils, in cleverly patterned arrangements. For me it was quintessential Thailand and reminiscent of the hospitality we have enjoyed at weddings, funerals, parties and community events. Just wonderful – and by now I’m hoping you are all wishing you were here!
I should tell you about the wonderful group of women who are on the team here. Stephanie Wade (from Ireland), Jenni Hamilton (from the MI office in Queensland and now planning to stay long term), Katie Walacavage (a Queenslander known to the Hamiltons), Claire Ng (from Singapore) and Punee (from Ban Meata) have done a fantastic job preparing meals, doing our washing, mopping the floors and keeping the houses spic and span. Others like Jenny Joseph (Kiwi), Alex Fox (Aussie lady living permanently in Thailand), and often Jenni Hamilton and Katie Walacavage, spend their days on the building site pulling their weight marvelously.
This week has been significant for a couple of reasons. After being here 4 or 5 weeks we finally have something up out of the ground. In the last couple of days we have put up steel posts on the slab and now have 3 trusses up. Alex Fox and I have become bricklayers and Alex at least has become very proficient. We have started the walls on 3 sides of the first house and in between lifting up the trusses we are a couple of layers high and to the point of writing nothing has fallen over!
The other significant thing is the reduction in the size of the team. Katie Walacavage has gone, Graham Wray left on Sunday, Josh De Gee today, Dallas and Jenny tomorrow and our 2 Dutchmen the day after. And of course by the end of next week the last of the team will go home, although 3 or 4, including Chris Stolte will stay on and progress the work a bit more for a few months.
Despite all this there will be time for one more of these. Keep on keeping up with the news.
God bless
Ron



Dancing with my girl



Pawinee's house



My first block



Brung in Thai dancing costume