Enabling Works.

The harvest festival of Onam is being celebrated with lots of street music and parties. It is the most important festival in Kerala. All work has stopped and this gives me an opportunity to update my interested colligues on the progress on my project. Must give it a name. Suggestions will be welcome. Before construction of the house can commence I must carry out some enabling works: On 15th August I shook hands with two contractors and paid them mobilisation fees. I was promised work would commence at 8.00 AM on 17th August. The contract to dig first of two wells started at 7.45 AM. Digging was preceded by a small prayer, lighting of incence and distribution of sweets to children. The four labourers who would dig the well also received small money, all as part of the ceremony.The well is necessary to provide water for construction purposes. The second contract is for ground works. The plot is appx 250 m in length, sloping down by 27 m to East therefore providing an open view of Lake Villayarny. The house is designed to be placed at the highest plateau along the Western edge of the site. I have taken another 'small' risk and put down a deposit to acquire another small strip of land to the West , which has some interesting trees and also to increase space around the building. The ground works involve reducing levels along the length (appx 270m) of the western plateau by up to 1.8m The ground works contractor arrived at 8.30 am with a JCB, tipper and necessary labour. Again prayers were said, incence sticks lit and sweets distributed. Simultaneously there are three other teams working on the site: A team of four clearing the whole area of undergrowth(the creepy crawleys have fled on the sight or sound of bare feet working on the grounds) A team of three who use explosives to break boulders, the biggest I have measured was appx 2.1x 1.8x1.8 m. The stone, very dense grey-blue is being used to build boundary walls and will also be used for foundations of the house. The well has reached a depth of 5m. In the process one huge bolder had to be dynamited and we have now come across another, so whilst that will be dealt with the diggers will be working on the second well. The location of the wells is determined by following the wisdom laid down in Vasthu, a sort of building discipline with centuries of practical wisdom wrapped with religious emphasis. When in Rome dress like a Roman but after a good debate and reasoning. The JCB will return on Wednesday, 29th August, as will the well diggers. Explosives guys will work on 28th to get rid of the mega boulders in the 10 ft diameter well. It is an experience working here. My English is getting seriously abbreviated to mono sylables. These guys are fun to work with: willing, polite but also set in some ways. The hand tools are fairly basic but they achieve a lot. At the end of every evening all the teams get paid their days wages including the two contractors. I think and hope that we will have completed the enabling works by Tuesday 4th September. The main contract is programmed to start on 15th September, this may be a little optimistic as I had to carry out various amendments to suit site conditions, For the better I dare say. I have made a good photographic record of the work in progress but am not yet fully set up to illustrate my blog. Watch this space and I await comments. Chandra M Gopal