Day 2 - Let the Games Begin

content from joanne

Monday - 12 November

At supper this evening, Aommy told us that there were three seasons in Thailand – hot, hotter, and crazy hot. Although November is the start of winter, we got a taste of this today.

We were a lovely sight today taking off after breakfast ‘all dressed up’ in our red Global Village t-shirts and our clean clothes. Everyone was very excited to get working.

All dressed up and ready to go!

With our large group of 17 people, we are actually building two separate houses – one for the Chaicana family, and the other for the Intasuk family. On this first day, both busses met up at the first location to be officially greeted by the family representatives and some local officials. Aommy referred to one man as the Governor but I am not completely sure – he did have a lot of medals…

The work site and start of the bucket-chain

The two work sites look roughly the same, There are concrete poles set into the ground for the main corners of the building, and the roof is already installed. The wood forms for the foundations are already in place and levelled and the re-bar has already been tied and put into place. Our job for today will be to make concrete to fill the footings. There are two ‘bathtubs’ at each site, large mounds of sand and rocks, a pile of concrete bags, and some bricks in a pile. Fully prepped for us.

For the workers, there are long tables with plastic chairs set up under an awning (one even has fans installed!), a large drinks cooler (with ice!), and toilet facilities. The first site is out on the edge of a field with no other houses nearby – so the toilet area is a more ‘traditional’ Asian style. The second site is actually in a small collection of houses, with the new house being built right beside the old house, so there is a western-style toilet area for our use.  

Mix Master

Our recipe

We had a quick stretch, and got to work mixing cement. The ‘recipe’ was conveniently marked on one of the concrete poles for our use, but the basic process is to take half-a-bag of cement mix, and 3.5 (later adjusted to 4) buckets of water, and mix thoroughly. Add 8 buckets of sand, then 9 buckets of rocks, and start up a bucket chain to scoop the concrete out of the tub and transport to the footings area. Easy, right? It is, except for the 30+ degree weather and the humidity (“it’s not the heat – it’s the humidity”). We were ‘moist’ after the stretches, and had sweat dripping from our noses within half-an-hour. The morning was not too bad because we had some cloud cover, and everyone was chipper at lunch-time, but the sun came out in full force in the afternoon and it was downright steamy. Nevertheless, site 1 finished all their footings in the morning (except for a small area that still needed wood forms), and site 1 came to site 2 in the afternoon to help finish off their footings in the afternoon. One bus left early to get people out of the sun and into the shower and the pool.

Not so clean now - but still smiling!

Supper was at a very nice restaurant down by the river, and we all had fun spending our 400 baht from the rather extensive menus, but by the time supper was over, most of the group were ready for bed. One quick trip to the 7-11 to pick up supplies and some street-vendor sweets and we were toast.

Tomorrow – filling in the floors (assuming we make it past the stretching session)! Wish for clouds, please. Some breeze would be nice as well if you can manage it…