Ron in Thailand: Missive 2

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 -