Missive 6 – 2013

Life takes on a different shape as we are back “home” at Phetchabun. We are in our house, “Ron’s Place”, and enjoying the growth of the plants around it. The frangipani has grown and a bush/tree with beautiful red flowers that Colleen nurtured through a few setbacks with whipper-snippers is now huge. Another agave type of plant that had a slow start is now monstrous and we’ll have to cut some of it back to walk past it. We usually eat with the kids but on a couple of occasions we have cooked in our house and there-in lies a funny story. We were having pork chops and some stir-fried vegetables and Colleen poured some oil from a jar on the sink cupboard into the frying pan. It bubbled up straight away and we wondered if it was fresh so we used more oil from a new bottle. We sat down to a huge pork chop each and a beautiful pile of vegetables, but the first mouthful was absolutely awful. We had to leave the vegetables and persevere with the pork because although it was not good it was at least bearable. We concluded that the oil must have been rancid so before throwing it out Colleen put some on her fingers and then under water. It frothed up beautifully – just like the detergent it was!! For the Jews pork is unclean, but these couple of Gentiles had ensured that theirs wasn’t! Colleen had a great birthday made even better by Mum Whun, who was having her day off at her parents’ place in a nearby village, inviting us to lunch there. We love going there because it is a piece of genuine Thailand with traditional wooden housing set amongst coconut palms and “fair-dinkum jungle”. They, and mainly Whun’s Dad, had prepared a beautiful meal of soups, lap (spicy minced pork) and sticky rice. We sat outside on a wooden platform with the food in bowls amongst us, although Colleen was given a chair to sit in. A couple of dogs were in attendance as were a number of chickens who scratched around blissfully ignorant of the feet of one of their number sticking over the edge of one of the soup bowls. Whun’s Grandma, all of 84 years old, was eating with us and she chatted on endlessly telling us about various recent incidents, including falling over and hurting her arm. Much of this was obvious but Whun chipped in with a bit of translation here and there. We talked tobacco farming with Whun’s Dad in the shadow of drying tobacco from the recent crop, and her Mum shared a few health woes as well. They love to have us come and the language difference doesn’t seem to matter. It was such a special time and one of the reasons we love Thailand – don’t you wish you were here? That night we took our Whun and Why, Joop Jang (another girl from their house), Mum Whun and her sister Tip (who is now a carer at Ban Meata) into Phetchabun (40kms) for a birthday tea at the Pizza Company. The meal for 7 cost us about $50, pretty good by our standards but nearly a week’s wages for Tip. One of our reasons for being here is to attend the graduation ceremony for Why and 5 other of our Year 12 students attending the Kanchanar School in Lomsak. It is one of about a dozen of the “King’s Schools” and although there is a cost to attending this has been made possible through each student having a generous sponsor. Somchai and Cheewar had their sponsors here for the ceremony and of course we have an interest in Why. We were so proud of all them. The ceremony is held in a large elevated hall with fans all way round which have jets of water making a cooling mist in the hot conditions. Up the front there was a row of Buddhist monks and a podium lavishly decorated with flowers for the Headmaster to sit in. The school orchestra entertained the waiting parents with many tunes recognisable to Westerners. The students, about 150 of them marched in, spectacular in their dress uniforms and were seated in rows in alphabetic order. The top few students were seated in the front row, including our Why who was equal second. They began with a short Buddhist ceremony and while everybody held their hands in the wei position our 6 students stood with their hands by their sides declaring that they are Christians. It is good that the school, and the Buddhist society generally, is tolerant of other beliefs. In a highly regimented fashion and row by row the students made their way to the front and received their graduation certificates in a special blue folder. The Thais love photographs and it took about an hour after that to get the whole school photo as well as the little groups that gathered in front of the i-pads, the mobiles, and the more conventional cameras. After processing out of the hall they all made their way up to the quadrangle in front of the multi-storey school and marched in military fashion in front of the staff and dignitaries, all of whom were dressed in what looked like naval officer uniforms bedecked with medals and other regalia. The marching style is reminiscent of what we see on TV when the North Koreans parade although the leg does not go as high at the front. Eyes right and the salute happen as the parade passes the teachers on the steps of the school – very spectacular but maybe a bit over the top in our Western eyes. We took the kids out to lunch at a restaurant afterwards and we feasted regally on fish, tom yum soup, rice, and a variety of tasty pork, chicken and vegetable dishes in lovely sauces. The kids were very pleased to get out of their formal jackets, buttoned to the neck for the boys and worn with a tie for the girls. Each of the 6 kids is currently sitting what seems like an endless stream of exams, mostly entrance exams for university. I still haven’t come to grips with the complexity of the university entrance system here although every conversation I have reveals another nuance which makes it a bit clearer. Why is my best bet in this – she takes the time to patiently explain how it works with a dictionary in one hand to sort out the technical stuff. She is a marvel and we love her dearly. The very next day we prepared again for feasting at a gathering of Mercy International leaders and sponsors where we looked back over and celebrated the enormous changes and achievements of the 3 orphanages over the last 5 years. Colleen and I were charged with the table decorations so we went into Lomsak with our Whun to negotiate for 10 floral table arrangements and 2 large sheafs of flowers. We needed to pick them up on Saturday morning so we waited with some trepidation to see if that part of the negotiations had been understood. We needn’t have worried, they were beautifully done, looked stunning and the whole lot cost $60 – similar stuff in Australia we estimate would cost over $300. Colleen ended up supervising some of the food preparation to match the menu - the concept of separate courses is a bit lost on the Thais. It was a good night though, interrupted by a blackout because there was a rainstorm happening so for a while we ate by “mobile phone light” – torchlight is much easier to say! We started with some traditional Thai dancing by some girls from our school – their dance teacher is a man, well, at this stage he is but I understand he has other intentions and certainly his eyebrows and make-up indicated that he plans to bat for the other side! We then heard the stories of how each orphanage is going and how the farm, the community outreach programmes, the English language school at Sisaket, our own school, and the recently begun uniform sewing project is progressing. Unfortunately our time here is drawing to a close. We will be home in less than 2 weeks. Our Whun will graduate next year and she is eagerly looking forward to us coming for that. “If you do not come I cry, if you come I smile”, she is saying. We are so proud of her and her English – everyone in her house and in her class at school look to her when they are struggling with their English. So that looks like it as far as blogs go for 2013. If you have kept up, thanks for travelling the journey with me. I have appreciated and valued your thoughts and prayers. God bless Ron Colleen's birthday at Mum Whun's Colleen's birthday at Pizza Company the 6 graduates with one of their teachers We are so proud of them! The headgear of one of the Thai dancers

Missive 5 - 2013

One thing that is slowing us down and is frustrating the life out of Malcolm is the Thai contractor for block laying, rendering and tiling who doesn’t pay his workers so they don’t turn up on site. Pawinee has therefore arranged for a team to come from Phetchabun to render and tile the dining room/kitchen/laundry and they are making progress. There is something quintessentially Thai about them and it is interesting to see how they live. They camp on the site in little tents and seem to live off the land as well. They have nets in which they catch small fish from the dam and they cook their meals over a fire behind the building they are working on. One of the women has already levelled a small patch near the dam and planted a few things which are no doubt destined for the cooking pot in a few weeks’ time. There are at least two families living there including a couple of children, one maybe four and the other only one. The one year old has a sleep in a hammock strung between two posts on the building and Mum, who mixes mortar for the tiling, dashes over every now and then to give the hammock a swing. There is no day-care for working Mums in Thailand! It was a delight to watch the father, as fathers do everywhere, take the kids for a ride around the site in a wheelbarrow and to hear the squeals of delight as he went through mud, over some bumpy bits and up onto the building slab. As we walk the streets around the site we come across a range of homes from the obviously wealthy to the obviously poor. Just down the street there is a family that owns a couple of cows and they are housed at night in the most ramshackle shed you can imagine with a drinking trough, straw on the floor, and a number of ducks bedded down with the cows. I reckon you could plonk the baby Jesus in there and have a pretty genuine nativity scene. Last Sunday I visited an Australian Dutch bloke and his Thai partner in a neat little house in a back street behind the site. I met Ben (75 years old) and Rut (in her 40’s) last year when I was out walking. I took Alan Baker with me and we were welcomed like old friends, given a cup of tea, and we spent an hour and a half chatting with them. As a result of my visit last year they came over to the site a few months ago, made themselves known to the small team that was here at the time (some Queenslanders with Richard) and cooked them a meal. Ben migrated to Australia in the 50’s, lived in Perth and trained race horses so we had a long conversation about drugs in sport! He is also an acquaintance of Brian Cousins, Ben Cousins’ dad, so that was more grist for the mill in our conversation. Just a little sideline here. We worked a bit late one night this week and there was a beautiful red and purple sunset and overhead were thousands upon thousands of white cranes flying in V-formations and taking several minutes to complete their “flypast”. It was a wonderful sight not to be missed. Now where are we up to with the building? – and this is pretty much the final report as we all pack up by the middle of next week. We have poured more square metres of concrete this year than last when we poured the four building slabs. We have poured verandahs front, back and sides on the 3 houses, verandahs on the front and side of the dining room, a basketball court size play area, a road through the middle of the site, and a path along the front of the buildings. The big pours, 4 and 5 truck loads, are proving quite difficult as the concrete goes off quite quickly in the heat and we struggle with our numbers to get it floated off while it is still workable. Without the helicopter we would have no hope. We have put ceilings in the dining room and bottom storey of the 2 storey house, flushed and painted them. The electrical work has been done in the 2 storey house, and a huge amount of plumbing has been completed – there are blue PVC pipes everywhere. A local Rotary Club has offered to put in a water filtration system so we have been working frantically (mostly Richard) to get another few hundred metres of pipe in under the paths before we poured so we could get the filtered water to each of the houses. All in all we have made a huge difference to the site in 6 weeks notwithstanding the comment at the head of this missive about the hold-ups. Our bodies are showing signs of weariness and there will be a certain pleasure next week in not having to get up and go to work shovelling dirt in the sun in 37 degree heat. But the sense of satisfaction is enormous and there is a real sense amongst the team of serving God as we give these special kids “Life, hope and a future” as Mercy International’s vision statement says. Colleen arrived in Thailand yesterday and today (Friday) she travelled to Phetchabun by bus and was met by Mum Whun, our Whun, and all the girls from the big girls’ house. On Sunday I travel there in time for her birthday – it will only be the third time I have been with her on her birthday in the last 9 years! The next missive will be of a different flavour as I change gears and spend 4 weeks at the Phetchabun Ban Meata and get involved in some admin work – as yet undefined! Until then God bless Ron The difference we've made in 6 weeks Manger scene The ramshackle cow shed The 3rd house going up Ben & Rut

Missive 4 – 2013

I thought a word picture of a typical day might give you some of the flavour of our stay here. I wrote earlier that the day seemed to start at 5.15am when Jai starts rattling the pans, but I must confess that it is 7.45am before I, and all the others appear for breakfast. Most of us live in the “yellow house” (very creatively named as you will see from the photo). It is a rented property to cater for teams on the site just 50 metres down the narrow street. It has several bedrooms upstairs and a large living area downstairs which has beds for 3 people. This is where I sleep with my mosquito net (my princess bed according to the others) and Trevor, my travelling bear in pride of place on the pillow. There is a lounge area where we sit and eat or read at nights, and over a serving bench there is a fridge, cupboards and a sink. The kitchen is attached at the back and is typically Thai with slatted walls – Thais hate cooking smells in their houses. Back to breakfast. I usually have a bowl of cornflakes and toast with vegemite and cheese. The toaster is a high-tech looking thing but makes the slowest toast in the world – it’s hard to tell whether it’s cooked or just went stale waiting. Actually Thai bread never goes stale because there are enough additives to keep it going for weeks. Before 8am it’s on with the work boots and over to the site to continue with a job or get a new one from Malc. This week I have been relieved of channelling conduit and spent the time boxing up for concrete. We have large steel frames with a timber face which we use and re-use for boxing and these have to be manoeuvred into place, pegged or fixed to a verandah post for example, the dirt levelled inside, steel mesh laid inside, steel pegs drilled into the walls to tie the slab to the building if it’s a verandah, trenches dug at the edges for a thicker edge, and level pegs put in with a laser so the screeding can be done accurately. At 10am we take 30 minutes off for “smoko” back at the yellow house where we are served with cordial, pineapple, watermelon, papaya and some uniquely Thai little jam filled biscuits. We are then back on the job for another two hours before repairing to the yellow house for lunch. This is a highlight and we have been served some wonderful Thai dishes, prepared with minimum or no chilli. The Thai workers sit down in the kitchen and I usually go out there to get some chilli or to try out some of their spicy dishes. The two afternoon sessions, split by afternoon smoko, are only one and a half hours which is great because the afternoons can get pretty hot. As I write this we have finished a day’s work in 37 degree heat and everyone drinks copious amounts of water to replace the copious amounts lost through sweat. We have actually been blessed with some pretty mild weather with a few weeks of temperatures in the high twenties. We knock off at 5pm and head for the showers to wash off the grime of the day. You wouldn’t believe how nice a cold bottle of Coke Zero is at the end of the day. We then organise ourselves for our evening meal. Sometimes we go to the little local eatery for the world’s best pad thai, sometimes we drive to the steakhouse, sometimes we get food from a local market, and sometimes we go to Central Plaza, a huge shopping complex with a whole floor of food outlets like KFC, Sizzler, Maccas (expensive) and a food court (cheap). The evening at the yellow house is made up of sitting in front of laptops (emails and writing blogs!), and in my case working through my crossword book, doing my Bible reading and devouring a number of novels. Everyone wanders off to bed at various times (they are nearly all old people here!!) and I am usually the last go at about 10.30pm unless the novel is very gripping. Well, that’s the shape of the day for 6 days and we have Sunday off, going to church with kids at the Ban Meata centre in the morning and then lazing around for the afternoon. We have just about exhausted the tourist potential of Khon Kaen – that took up the first Sunday afternoon! We received some sad news this past week. Some of you would remember Tim and Steph, the Irish couple, who worked with us last year and who received news while they were here that their son had contracted leukaemia. After all the usual treatment over the last 12 months he died a few days ago. There was some good news in that he had been estranged from his parents for a number of years and that situation was resolved. He also went to church with his parents in the last days and heard the gospel clearly which Tim and Steph believe had an impact on his life. As I conclude this missive the Dutch people are leaving us so we are a much depleted workforce and our chances of finishing some things in the original plan are fading. The last event for the Dutch was to bring all the kids out from the Ban Meata centre to witness the unveiling of the marble plaque announcing that the first completed house (well, almost) is designated the “Dutch House”. I have mentioned before that they raise enormous amounts of money doing lots of normal things (eg, Thai dinners) and a few bizarre things (eg, breaking the ice and swimming in the river, 24 hour stationary bike rides). As I conclude this missive it is a lazy Sunday afternoon and getting very warm again. The last few days have been over 35 degrees so working out in the sun getting ready for concreting tomorrow has been a hot business. A few of us went over to Tescos (large shopping centre) for lunch at their food court today and tonight we will wander over to the market on the local school grounds and pick up a few items for tea. For me that will be some chicken pieces, maybe some chopped pork, a spicy salad in a plastic bag, and some sticky rice, also in a plastic bag. Don’t you wish you were here?! One more blog next week before I head back to Phetchabun to meet up with Colleen who is leaving Australia this Thursday and arriving at Ban Meata on Friday. God bless Ron

The Yellow House

My bed

Yellow house kitchen

Dining room before the next round of concreting

Missive 3 - 2013

Let’s start with our trip to Phetchabun last weekend. It was a flying visit as we left on Saturday morning and came back on Sunday afternoon. One of our neighbours here at the building site runs a 12 seater minibus so we hired that for the journey and we did the 200km journey in about 3 hours with a stopover at a huge service station with shops and food outlets. The toilet stop was made interesting by some new signs which we have not encountered before - there are now 3 choices, Men, Women and LadyBoys! Our arrival at Ban Meata was hugely anticipated by me as it was the first time I had seen my Whun for nearly 12 months. It was worth waiting for and we both shed a few tears over each other’s shoulder. Teams that arrive there receive a rapturous welcome and this was no exception – those who have come for the first time are always impressed, fall in love with the kids, and find it hard to leave. It was the Australia Day weekend so on Saturday night we had an Aussie BBQ Thai style at Pawinee’s house. We got out the little earthenware buckets the Thais use as a BBQ, loaded them with charcoal and a couple of us sat over them for most of the evening with hamburger patties, pork pieces, chicken legs and some prawns. It was idyllic – sitting outside on a warm evening, eating our fill as it came off the BBQ, consuming many bottles of Pepsi Max and a few of the blokes had some bottles of Leo, Thai beer. The older girls joined us (Mum Whun’s house which includes my Whun) and they sat cross-legged around the BBQ’s as they love to do and polished off any of the food we hadn’t eaten. As I said in an earlier missive, this is Thailand and I love it! We had worship on Sunday morning and it was wonderful to be back with our Thai family. I was preaching (4 days’ notice which is pretty good) and spoke on listening to God, using the story of Samuel and Eli. I dramatized the story and they responded well. After lunch Richard and I took the big girls (13 of them) to the Than Thip waterfall for a swim and it was great to spend some more time with Whun. We were back by 4 o’clock and left for Khon Kaen ready for the working week. A word about the Dutch. We met the Dutch team of four at Phetchabun and they came back with us. Annetta, Adelbert, Hennie and Corrie actually raise our average age. Corrie is 78 years old and is up a ladder painting, and when the concrete trucks came in she grabbed an implement to drag the concrete around! She stays with us on site and the other 3 stay in a hotel and travel out daily, much to her scorn. But they do a great job and later this week before they leave there will be an unveiling ceremony of a plaque on the “Dutch House” with all the Ban Meata kids out at the site for the occasion. There has been great progress on the site in the past week and a panoramic view in an accompanying photo will hopefully give you an idea of where we are up to. We have a concrete road that comes from the back gate and is now nearing the dining room. The third house is beginning to go up and concrete is coming again on Tuesday for the verandah. I have spent the entire week (with time off when the concrete trucks come) chasing walls in the upstairs house for conduit. This week I will chase walls for co-axial cable and then I will chase walls for the plumbing. I have been going to bed with the taste of dust in my mouth it looks like that will be true for this week as well. Our 2 young girls, Jade and Tori, have been putting up the ceilings in the first storey house on their own. Great progress from never having done anything like that before. They are anxiously watching for any untoward muscle growth! They will gain some notoriety through a journalist friend in Kingston who is publishing their story in the Kingston Leader and a couple of other SE papers. Some of you who have been reading this blog for a number of years now may remember that our first impressions of chicken being BBQ’d between bamboo sticks was that it looked suspiciously like flat rats. You will be delighted to know that when we visited our local market to get our evening meal the other night we came across the genuine article. Two rats, skinned but complete with head, ears and giblets were laid out on the slab. We didn’t ask what they were worth because nobody in our group had any desire to buy them. The accompanying photo shows Richard looking a bit interested. Right next door to the rats was a sort of porta-cot teeming with what looked like cockroaches but were obviously edible because the deep fried variety were for sale in a basket along with grasshoppers and other insects. There was a piece of hard plastic fixed around the top of the “cot” so although these bugs swarmed up the sides they couldn’t get out. Not wanting to be a latter-day John the Baptist (no honey available!) we gave all this a miss. And to finish with some news about Murray. Those of you who know him know that he has a huge bushy beard, Ned Kelly style. On Sunday he went down to a local hairdresser and said he wanted nitnoy (little bit) off. He came back with nitnoy left on! He just looks as if he hasn’t shaved for a few days and I don’t think he even recognised himself in the mirror because it hasn’t been that short for 25 years. He thinks he’ll have stay in Thailand for a while or they won’t let him out with his current passport photo. Enjoy the read and until next time God bless Ron Richard and the flat rats Boonsalit with the first bite out of a tortoise found on site Panoramic view of the new Ban Meata Ron with Giv, Why and Mum Whun at the top of Than Thip waterfall

Missive 2 - 2013

The day usually starts (or seems to) at 5.15am when Jai, our Thai cook starts chopping things and moving the pans around in the kitchen. Jai and her husband Boonme are Hmong and come from the mountains near our Petchabun children’s village. They are the parents of Somchai, a wonderful young 17 year old from Phetchabun Ban Meata who has been with us for years because of the extreme poverty of his parents. Jai and Boonme will continue to work at Khon Kaen Ban Meata when we finish. They came with us to Richard’s birthday outing described in the last missive and it was the first time that Jai had ever been to a restaurant like that.
I mentioned our Thai workers last time so I should introduce you to the rest of the team. Richard Wray from Brackenridge Baptist in Brisbane has worked with us before and has led several teams to Thailand over the years. He is a born organiser and has plumbed the mysteries of Thai hardware stores so almost daily he is off on a quest for more steel, tools, gyprock, pumps and myriad other supplies. Russell Lee, trophy shop owner in Brisbane, closes his shop each year to join us on the team. This year he brought 2 young brothers, 14 and 16, whose appearance belies their age. Jarrod, the 16 year old is a mountain of a man with a big bushy beard and is immensely strong. Our trip to the steak house, all you can eat for 139 baht ($4.50), was like an early arrival in heaven for both of them.
We have a chippy from the Sunshine Coast and an electrician from the same place. Todd, the chippy, is a young bloke with surfie blonde hair and an instant hit with the girls from Ban Meata. Josh, another young bloke from Brisbane, was with us last year and has fallen in love with Thailand so much he came back during the last year. Allan Baker, an older bloke (ie older than me!) also from the Sunshine Coast and a long-time supporter of Ban Meata completes the Queensland contingent and outnumbers the South Australians by so many that we have only a tenuous grip on the title “South Aussie Builders”.
So to the others. Malcolm needs no introduction as he has led the team for 9 years now. Most of his time is spent planning (or modifying plans as Plan A never works in Thailand!) and organising the team. We were able to hire a tractor with a bulldozer blade so Malcolm was as happy as a pig in straw shaping the 70 truckloads of soil into a play area and paths and landscaping. Malcolm brought his 18 year old grand-daughter Jade, from Kingston, and she has been a revelation tackling every task on-site and is now quite an expert in putting up ceilings. Her friend from Kingston, Tori, has also come and they have spent time in the ceiling back-boarding the gyprock sheets with glue. Jade slipped and she, like Suwan went through a sheet but fortunately straddling one of the rafters. Jade and Tori love the Thai markets and are much enticed by the cheap prices.
Malcolm also brought Sandra from his church in Broome and she accompanied Eric, an 85 year old benefactor for Ban Meata. He struggles (of course) to manage the heat and sweat on site so spends his time at Phetchabun making flying visits with Rob and Pawinee to check on the progress. Sandra has a goal to use all the power tools and has achieved that with the exception of the 9 inch grinder (a brute of an instrument) and the jack hammer (weighs nearly as much as she does!).
And that leaves Murray, one of the original team 9 years ago and over here this time initially for the marriage of his son Chris (another past team member) to Porn, one of the Thai workers at Phetchabun Ban Meata. When his wife Ruth returned to Australia he came to Khon Kaen and will be here for the whole 6 weeks.
Now here’s the problem. Nearly all the Queenslanders will be gone by next week and apart from the 2 young girls and Josh the team will be made up of old codgers! The average age won’t be helped when 2 Dutch men and 2 Dutch ladies join us next week. All on the wrong side of seventy it’s great to see them working away in the heat painting steel and painting the walls of the finished buildings. They work tirelessly through the year raising funds for Ban Meata and have contribute enough to pay for one of the houses – naturally it will be called the “Dutch House” and a plaque will be ceremonially attached sometime next week.
So where are we up to. We have poured 100 cubic metres of concrete in the past week or so – verandahs have been finished for 2 buildings and the large play area has been done. We bought a new helicopter (finishing machine) and Malcolm has spent hours standing contentedly behind that giving a nice smooth surface. Preparations are being done to put ceilings in the bottom storey of the 2 storey house, the ceilings are being flushed in the dining room, more boxing is being done for paths and roads, and our chippie has been bird-proofing the dining room and a house. Plumbing is being put into the top storey of a house and this means drilling big holes through the concrete floor.
My job for several days has been channelling the walls and putting electrical conduit into the top storey for power outlets, lights and fans. This involves a 4 inch and a 6 inch angle grinder, a router bit, hammer and cold chisel, facemasks and earmuffs and lots of noise and dust – a hot, filthy job but the dust is clean!
This weekend (last weekend by the time you read this) we are off to Phetchabun and I can’t wait to see my Whun. It’s the Australia Day weekend and we traditionally have an Aussie meal together to celebrate. More of this in the next episode.
Until then
God bless
Ron

Pic 1 - Malc flying the helicopter

Pic 2 - Jade and Tori after back-boarding

Pic 3 - Jarrod, 16 year-old man mountain

Pic 4 -

Malc flying the helicopter Jade and Tori after back-boarding Jarrod, 16 year-old man mountain Conduit channelling

Missive 1 - 2013

After telling everybody about working in the heat and humidity we have just enjoyed several beautiful days in the high 20’s - most of you reading this are probably enduring a heatwave. Don’t you wish you were here?
Work started in the dining room and I have spent my time on a platform putting in ceilings. We have finished the kitchen and I’m pleased to report that some last minute cortisone injections have been very helpful and my shoulder is coping very well. It’s been great to work alongside the Thai boys again – Deo, Sun and Boonsalit have been with us for many years now and Suwan worked with us as a teenager when we first came to Thailand in 2005. Suwan had a small problem yesterday – he was “back-boarding” the gyprock up in the ceiling by gluing pieces along the edges of the sheets when he slipped and went through the ceiling. Fortunately he didn’t go all the way but we had to pull down 2 sheets before the glue dried and replace them.
One of the things I love about Thailand is the variety of smells that are typical of the country. Travelling the streets of Khon Kaen one is assailed by the smells of barbecued chicken from the roadside stalls, spicy cooking from the hundreds of tiny restaurants, fish and vegetables and meat from markets, and of course the not so welcoming drains and sewers and smoke from burning rubbish. It’s Thailand and I love it. Don’t you wish you were here?
Last night for our meal we went to a fish restaurant to celebrate the birthday of Richard, one of our team members. Typically the restaurant was open sided overlooking a lake surrounded by thatched huts and the lights reflected in the water. We ordered tom yum soup (too hot for some), several barbecued fish, plates stacked high with fried rice, plates of pork and chicken with vegetables and cashews in a beautiful sauce, deep fried prawns, and plates of curried crab. It was culinary heaven. We finished with the birthday cake that one of the Thai girls brought – mostly decorated cream and some cake underneath it all. It’s Thailand and I love it. Don’t you wish you were here?
Adding to the dinner experience we all travelled out there in a ute - some in the cab and 7 of us uncomfortably in the back with the warm air blowing through our hair and the smell of Thailand wafting past. The roadsides are festooned with neon signs and lights, and the service stations typically have 4 or 5 fluoros set up like an arrow to direct you in. Motorbikes are everywhere overtaking you on both sides and a law unto themselves. It’s Thailand and I love it. Don’t you wish you were here?
Sunday is our day off and we took the chance to do a little tourism after worship with the kids at Ban Meata. We found a lake surrounded by beautiful grounds in which people were jogging and using outdoor exercise equipment. There is a huge aviary with a number of peacocks but there were no birds that we could see using the top half which would have been 30 metres high. We then meandered back home through many small villages. Each village has its share of beautiful homes rubbing shoulders with hovels made of rusty iron sheets and greying weathered wooden planks. Dogs lie in the middle of the road and move reluctantly for the traffic and people sit at the front of dilapidated homes talking on their mobile phones. All this with a backdrop of coconut palms and green rice paddies. It’s Thailand and I love it!
Sunday is market day on the grounds of the local school and we went there to supplement our tea which Jip (Sun’s wife) was preparing for us. Markets are wonderful places of variety and colour – you can buy anything from clothes (new and used), kitchen implements, shoes, sunglasses, tools, and food. We bought a piece of pork chopped into pieces with a mean looking hatchet, chicken on a stick, an octopus salad, and some jam filled donuts. Jip had been cooking up a bowl of lap (minced chicken or pork) and sticky rice. We sat down to a sumptuous spread. As always happens, we sat in the eating area and the Thais sat on the floor in the kitchen to eat. Their lap was considerably spicier than ours but knowing I like chilli they always ask me out to have some of theirs. Sometimes it is so hot that it’s pride alone that enables me to get through it. But this is Thailand and I love it! And I wish you were here to share the delights.
But back to the building report. The dining room as mentioned has the ceiling going in, the single storey living quarters is almost finished and is being tiled, the 2 storey building almost has the walls topped and is being rendered. The Thai blokes are finishing the roof while this happening. Many truckloads of dirt are trundling in to raise the ground level for verandahs and paths around the site, and for a large play area. This week work will start on the third accommodation building the slab of which we poured last year. Malcolm has just calculated that we will spend about 3 million baht ($100,000) while we are here so thank you to all those people who have contributed and helped us on the way.
I have tried to entice you with some of the flavour of being here and give you some idea of why I love to come back. Next time I’ll introduce you to a few more of the people here and those on the team. Your continued prayers are valued and appreciated.
Until next time
God bless
Ron

Pictures:
Pic 1 - A healthy walk in the Health Park
Pic 2 -
Pic 3 - Some of the food stalls at the market
Pic 4 - Ron putting up channel for the gyprock

A healthy walk in the Health Park

A typical village street

Some of the food stalls at the market

Ron putting up channel for the gyprock