Building a school isn't a terribly easy thing to do! Many a problem arose in the process, which is all part of the process, I guess. But where to begin? First we got the land the started the design process then we just got people going on it. All the labour for the school came from the hamlet which we built the school in, so it was just a matter of finding a foreman, organising a rota and telling them what to do.

When organising the work rota care was needed, there are many families and many people who need work, and it was important to share hours evenly so everyone could benefit. At one stage there were a few complaints that our foreman and friend, Buriyaram, was favouring his family. This was to expected really, so we just had another chat with him and there were no more complaints. At a later point there were few rumbling of rumours going around the village saying we had paid Buriya and Dhunji (the leader of the hamlet) 4 Lakh (around £4000) for the land, but again point out how completely unfounded a rumour that was, and considering neither Buriyaram or Dhunji wandered home in new clothes, nor with more food for the family, or anything remotely showing that they'd just struck upon the equivalent of 50 years earnings in a single deal soon put paid to that.

A greater problem was when Rob and Ed were accused of being Christian missionaries. They were effectively banned from the village, and if they had they gone back there may well have met with a bloody conflict. It's important to point out here that none of the antagonism came from the village itself. There we were welcomed and treated like family members, and that didn't change. All through the conflict they stood up for us and tried to convince the perpetrators of their ignorance. There are three 'bad' figures in the area, they control the population through fear and perpetuating their ignorance in certain aspects. We, going in trying to help the community and allow them to stand up against greedy and oppressive people thus represented a threat, so they tried to scare us off. They threatened to burn down our 'church', for that is what they claimed our school to be, and to cause us harm if we came back. It's fair enough really as many missionaries have come to area before, claimed to build schools, pretended to be Hindu (the predominant religion of the area) then proceeded to convert the kids. One group even did it with round buildings, so now round buildings are associated with Christianity and conversion. How were we to possibly ever figure that out! We were happy that people felt able to voice concerns about the project (such as us Westernifying the area) but were not impressed by the violent nature of their persuasion. They went so far as to attack the local police station and leave a few bobbies with sore heads. Further, when everything was explained to then, it is a school not a church, we aren't Christian, and we have no intention of introducing western culture, to the contrary we intend to promote and encourage local culture, they ignored our remarks and carried on threatening us and local Hindu workers, so we weren't impressed.

The building wasn't all problems though. The villagers, although a little tardy in their work (it was a nice little earner for them, and they wanted to keep that going) worked well, turned up every day on time and often worked past clock-out time. Everyone there welcomed us, and offered ideas for the build, which we did our best to incorporate.