Raising the roof

Last week the staff & students of SECMOL embarked on a major DIY project - replacing the roof of the eating area adjacent to the kitchen.

The original roof was constructed of 12ft poplar tree trunks spanning from the ends to one central beam, supported by a single column. On top of the trunks, at 90o, were laid lots of shorter, thinner, willow sticks. Over these was a layer of dried twigs for insulation finally topped with a thick layer of dried mud. The problem was that the trunks were too thin and too widely spaced, so the weight of 2-4ft of snow each winter on the flat roof had caused them to bow and split.

The first day most people got to work on removing the roof. This consisted of some people hacking away at the hard dry mud with pick-axes, while others shovelled the loose dirt onto sacks, which were then carried away. A few others had painting jobs around the campus.
Luckily it was quite a windy day as this helped to disperse the huge clouds of dust that were created. After helping for a few hours with the various jobs, the novelty of being completely covered in fine dust wore off (although the dust itself didn’t), so I dealt the ‘age’ and ‘bad-back’ cards & retired to sit on a nearby wall (upwind) to watch and take photos. (I’ve never met people so keen to have their photo taken as these students, even when caked in dust!).

The proceedings would have had any Health & Safety officer tearing their hair out; although many of the students had covered their mouths & noses with scarves, this was the extent of their PPE (Personal Protective Equipment)! Most of them had bare feet in loose fitting plastic flip-flop type sandals, yet amazingly no-one got a pick-axe in their foot/back/head despite the fact that many people were crowded into a relatively small area, could hardly see from the dust, and were variously wielding pick-axes, or shovels in between the constant flow of sack carriers! Once the mud and twigs were removed, I was amazed to see people standing astride the tree trunks (in flip-flops) while picking up the smaller sticks and throwing them off to one side, although at least the tree trunks were nailed in at this point. However, the next stage really had my heart in my mouth - a few of the boys (in flip-flops) stood on the 6” wide central beam, then bending over almost double grabbed the trunks and started yanking at them to get them loose from the nails. I had visions of a trunk suddenly breaking free and the associated boy diving head-first onto the stone floor 9 ft below - but amazingly no-one even so much as wobbled, yet alone lost their balance! They all seem to have a great sense of balance and no fear of heights, girls included. Once the trunks were free, they were then picked up by the boys while still balancing on the narrow end wall/central beam and carried to one side - and these are not light items.

The next day I made a token gesture and helped strip bark off the smaller sticks for a while (using a kitchen knife), then planing the new thicker, dry trunks. I soon learnt not to sweep away any shavings with my bare hands when I snagged a finger on a splinter which bled quite spectacularly (the finger that is). First-Aid was at hand in the form of a wodge of tissue held in place by masking tape!

Having been told the whole thing would take two days, when on day 3 the room was still very much open-air, I realised this project was progressing at ‘Indian Standard Time’ (what they needed was a good project manager!), so I decided to take the opportunity to visit Alchi monastery. Emma & Aoife (from Ireland) decided to join me - we decided at 2pm, quickly packed, walked the 3km to the road and were waiting for a bus/ride by 3.15pm - it was great to be able to act on the spur of the moment. We got a lift in a jeep quite quickly, although it was a sickening journey around hair-pin bends (we were sitting sidewards in the back). By 6pm we had checked into a nice clean hotel and to our delight found a restaurant that not only sold beer but also made superb Indian and Chinese food. It was a nice change that night to have a room with an ensuite and be sharing it with Emma, rather than numerous insects (& mice in the ceiling)!

The Alchi monastery is nearly 1,000 years old and has many smoke-stained paintings all over most walls, and some bizarre multi-forearmed statues. Just as we were steeling ourselves for a bumpy bus ride home, we met a couple of Americans who had stayed 3 days at SECMOL, so they gave us a lift right back to our doorstep.

Alchi was interesting, but I much preferred Phyang monastery which Emma, Rodrigo (from Chile) and I walked to the next day from SECMOL (1.5 hours, all uphill). A very friendly monk who spoke good English showed us round and even took us into a room that tourists are not normally shown, containing hundereds of 1,000-year-old small bronze buddah statues. It’ll be interesting to see how these monasteries compare to those in Bhutan.

Now the new, slightly higher, slightly sloping roof is on (although not completely finished yet) and lessons have restarted. I am tearing my hair out trying to get the Juniors to understand negative numbers, and addition/multiplication/etc thereof - they seem to think the sign of a number is irrelevant! I've made up a wooden stick with a positive / negative scale on it and I get them to count a clothes peg up and down to do the sums. This seems to work, but as soon as I get them to do it on paper they seem to completely forget anything they've just learnt! Any suggestions?

They are also making English movies in groups, as Rodrigo has a suitable camera and editing software. We volunteers have decided to secretly make one of our own, in Ladakhi, with a talking Yak, which we expect will cause much amusement as we’ve worked out the lines ourselves using my phrase book, so no doubt are saying it all wrong. You never know - it might raise the roof…

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