A typical day

To give you an idea of what's generally happening:

The alarm clock is set for 5 am. Our first meeting is at 5.30 am, with the other permanent staff in someone's hotel room.. We go over plans for the day, ensure all are singing off the same sheet, work out if anyone needs to take a break/skip something in order to do some behind the scenes arranging. Then all the team members arrive for morning devotions and tea and coffee before eading down to breakfast in the hotel. (Rice, noodle soup, or eggs and baguettes)
At 7am we get on the minibus to go to the village where we are building houses. We head out across the Tonle Sap river via the Japanese Friendship bridge (destroyed in the wars in the 70's, but re-building made possible in 1997 by the kind assistance of the Japanese Government) After the bridge we stop at a stall to buy a big block of ice (25 cents) to put in the esky with the packed lunches. We then drive to the Mekong ferry. Everyone as to get out to allow Sarath, our driver, to reverse down a dirt slope to the ferry itself. We buy bread and fruit here, for lunch. One baguette is about 18 cents. The rickety looking ferry takes 8 minutes to actually cross the river, by E's watch, but loading and unloading take a further 20. Dozens of small mopeds and passengers, and a few vans and trucks park on, in no particular order. Our driver always backs on and drives off, but other trucks drive on and then have to do a many-point turn across the deck of the ferry to get off. Watching the way the ferry dips almost to the waterline as it moves back and forth makes one mildly nervous.
Once over the Mekong we travel slwly for another half hour, along a packed dirt road, avoiding the cows, chickens, dogs, orange-robed monks, and mopeds with three wardrobes balanced on the handlebars that we meet along the way. There are buildings all along this road, monasteries, graveyards, pagodas, but mostly houses, some very nice and new, others just shacks. Most have something for sale on the ground floor, such as drinks, petrol or haircuts. At KleanmouengCheat we park the minibus on a side road near the building site, and work for about three hours, fetching, carryin, chiselling, digging, or whatever. Three hours doesn't sound like much, but in this heat, it's enough. Our translator and van driver pitch in without being asked, so much so that we have to keep reminding the translator that we need his tongue more than his hands.
We also keep some of the local children entertained with football, dancing, and generally behaving like silly foreigners.

More when laptop is recharged !