The Building Begins

As I sit here writing this blog entry, it is raining buckets outside. When it rains in Indonesia, it REALLY rains.

Lucky for us, it wasn't raining when we visited the building site at around 4:00 today. It rained most of the morning, so the workers didn't get too much done. They did manage to mark with strings and sticks the layout of the house, and started taking down trees and removing stones, etc. from where the foundation will go down. We were sad to find out that a couple of large trees will have to come down including my favorite mango tree at the front of the property...but unless we were to make a drastic design change, the trees have to go. At least in this country trees grow incredibly fast, and they are very cheap to buy. Tika promises me that she will design a garden that will knock my socks off....I trust her.

My guess is that it will take some time to clear the land to make it ready for the actual construction. They were using machetes to cut down trees, and moving large rocks and branches by hand...amazing. In the States, a couple of hours with a bulldozer would do the trick....not here.

So, we have started. The reason for starting the blog originally was to record the day-to-day progress on the house...that was back in May, I think. Ok, a little late, but now I have a real purpose with the blog...but I won't bore you with photos of the house EVERY day.....maybe just updates on major happenings.