All in a Day's Work!

Yesterday, a group of us left at 6:30am to go out to Battrang village to work on the fence at the school. We don't have enough time with the kids during the week to finish everything and we had some extra Khmer friends available to help, so we brought barbed wire to put on the fence posts and planned to buy material for gates and compost bins. On the way, we stopped for breakfast and ice coffee, which was good because we had a long day ahead of us!

Dara, Sombok, Sarom, Chris and Saroeth worked on hammering the barbed wire on the fence (except Chris had strick orders not to work a lot since he is still recovering from dengue fever). Thankfully the Khmer guys had put up fences before, so I decided while they were doing that I would take a swing at breaking up some of the soil in the area where we will have vegetable beds. It was like trying to chip at rock. I had to throw the hoe over my head and slam it into the ground 3-4 times in order to get a bit turned over. It took me 3 hours to hoe up the perimeter! Thankfully, after 2 hours, one of my female students, Nary, came over with a hoe to watch me (notice she didn't use the hoe) and she suggested I pour water on the ground and let it soak in so it would be easier to turn. She got some water and it worked! I was afraid of working the soil wet because it can destroy the structure of clay soil, but it was just enough water to loosen things up and give my back a break. My bruised, blistered hands were not so happy that evening.

After lunch at the usual spot in Sisophon, we bought wood, wire, bamboo, a few tools, nails, etc. and headed back to the school. Dara and Sarom worked on the gates and I helped Sombok and Saroeth with digging holes for the compost bin posts and cutting the 5m bamboo poles we bought. We worked until there was no more light (we accidently installed the 2nd gate on the wrong side of the fence, so it took a little time to fix that).

On the way back, Dara told stories and everyone was laughing. I didn't understand what he was saying because he was speaking fast and slurred, but every now and then he would tell a story in English for Chris and I. I especially liked the one he told about the first time he used an elevator! All in all, it was a good, productive day!