Good Day at the Office ...

Hi again,

Well today was a great day's work on site along with our owner families. We started off at 8.30 and met up with our house and block leaders and got to work again.

Number 4's looking good ! Today was mostly laying blocks and carrying them ! and mixing sand and cement. We managed a better system of carrying the blocks today and our chain gang worked very well !! We worked alongside the masons, Santosh, Sonara, the son of the owner, and his son, another Santosh, and were soon in the swing of laying the blocks and filling the gaps with concrete. This was my first job this morning - to lay the blocks for the wall between the door and the window.

We also had a chain gang for carrying the sand and cement for mixing and for transferring the mixed concrete in the 'Pizza Plates'.

And here's the full chain gang .. after a full morning that absolutely flew in.
We had another lovely lunch and bumped into a movie set on the way back !!! Here's one of the action shots ! I'm sure we would have been discovered for Bollywood, except we were in a rush back to the concrete !!

The afternoon brought more mixing, carrying and block laying. Here's Cathy, having found her new vocation as a Birckie ! We finished up about 4pm and we look forward to another great day building tomorrow.

We learned a bit more about the family today and directly after lunch we had a chat (through Bunty, our local co-ordinator) with Shantammal and her nephew Sonara. Sonara has three children (I must have missed one out yesterday !). His eldest son Santosh was building with us along with his father today. His next son and daughter are at school and don't get back till about 5pm so we haven't met them yet. I hope we may do before the build is over. With the 3 children and Sonara, his wife, mother and aunt, there will be 7 people living in the new house. The house is about 350 Sq Feet, and about 11 feet by 24 feet. There are 2 rooms.

The family keep goats for milk. We were amazed to see 5 goats in a tiny lean-to behind the old original house.

We also met one of the neighbours and her children. The lady has the most beautiful English and she introduced us to her children, a boy called Karthik and a smaller girl, whose name I didn't catch. They learn English at school and spoke perfect English. They love the cameras and are delighted if you show them the screen with the photo after you've taken. I'd say the little girl had never seen herself in a photo before .. she ws so excited. Here's some of the children. That's Karthik with his school tie and his little sister.


Tonight we were treated to a lovely meal out in town. It was quite a drive away but I think a lot of that was down to the traffic. When we got out of the bus and had to cross the road, it was really scary. There didn't appear to be any law and order and it was definitley survival of the fittest. Nirmala, our host co-ordinator brought us across the main road. She had to take her chance and just walk out bravely and stop the traffic and we all walked together across. I was very glad I didn't have to do that alone .. I think I'd still be there !

The meal was lovely and in a very authentic local restaurant, and I had an interesting experience with a local mango ! I took one from the buffet to try (on second thoughts, it may just have been for decoration and not to eat !). I asked the waiter for a knife to cut it and he very kindly took it away to cut for me. What came back bore very little relation to what I know as a mango .. It was white inside - looked like the inside of an apple and tasted really hard and bitter. The poor waiter could see I was a bit confused and went off to bring me something to make it better. He brought a big plate of Chat Marsala and told me it would be much better this is .. Unfortunately he was wrong ! and I remain confused about Indian mangos. I think the season is not quite started yet and maybe it's just that it wasn't ripe and ready to eat .. an experience nevertheless !

We got back safe and sound (Nirmala had to get us across the road again !) and we'll be ready for another full day tomorrow,

Bye for now.

P.S. A very warm welcome to Bernie's friends who have joined to follow the blog and apologies that I don't have any pictures of Bernie at work (She does work - honestly !!). It's just that we're working on different houses and I don't see her during the working day. I will try to get some pics of Bernie at work tomorrow.