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Published: July 16th 2017
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Geo: 16.392, 103.924
It looks as though the sugar cane season has started with trucks far too big for these small roads passing frequently in the mornings. There are even road trains which must have all sorts of problems making their way around the villages to the Kalasin Mitr Phol sugar refinery about 20km away.
Stan & Ollie arrive about 08:30 and apparently are here for the day. I sit on the front porch and watch every movement that they make which I guess is bound to put them off although they seem oblivious to my presence. To be fair they mightn't be the brightest but to my eyes they seem to be doing a reasonable job and that's all that matters at the end of the day.
This morning they need some boards that are longer than the pieces of scrap planks that we salvaged from the farm to start to put a concrete cap on the wall. We set out around the village in search and end up at a chap called Tui's house. In my opinion he is a cut above most of the people here having worked in several other countries and has reasonable English as well. He is a
designer, architect, builder, craftsman; a jack of all trades. It was Tui who built the giant white elephant that sat by the roadside here for so long last year until he managed to offload it to a hotel. He fancies himself as a Bob Marley lookalike, although less so these days, but I wont hold that against him. We find him in his enormous workshop where he is building a bathroom as an example of what he can do to sell to a couple of resorts. It is circular and made to look like an old tree stump - only concrete of course. Inside there is a waterfall built to run down the entire side of the room; that should help with any bladder issues. Tui lets us have our choice from a pile of boards that appear to MDF and will allow us to cut them as we wish so long as we return them afterwards. Cheers very much.
Mid-afternoon and the one blockie, not sure if this is Stan or Ollie, gets a little confused about what we want the wall to look like across the front. He has had a break for lunch and now needs retraining !
I explain as best as I can and even lay the blocks out to show him pointing to the wall they have already made which is identical and I think he has got it. I sit back down but no he starts doing it wrong again. I go through the whole process with him again and see a little flicker of light in his eyes and keep my fingers crossed. I wander through to the kitchen for a drink and when I return he has done it wrong again. Deciding that this could be a language issue I go and get Jai to explain. Now he understands - or does he ? As we sit chatting I look up to see that he is still using the wrong blocks !! Jai finally gets the message through and he is off and running again. I am only watching but the whole process is exhausting !
At close of play tonight they are 9 blocks short of completing the front wall but run out of cement and it isn't worth mixing up any more till morning.
When they have left we go to the village shop to order some more metal rods that they
are using to tie the blocks into the stone posts and they should be delivered first thing in the morning ready for their arrival.
Next door are nearly shut out now and I am liking that already. Jai's sister Begat wants a similar wall on her side now to keep the sloth et al out of her place as well !!
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