{"id":44,"date":"2011-01-22T05:16:01","date_gmt":"2011-01-22T12:16:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/?p=44"},"modified":"2011-03-01T11:53:23","modified_gmt":"2011-03-01T18:53:23","slug":"shopping-lao-style","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/?p=44","title":{"rendered":"Shopping – Lao Style"},"content":{"rendered":"

Greetings from Laos.\u00a0 Jordan filled you in yesterday about the business meeting we had with the local school officials in preparation of our Big School Build.\u00a0 (As an aside I need to tell you that I wanted to make her headline “Make a New Plan, Stan”.\u00a0 She said her generation wouldn’t get it, but I knew my baby-boomer peeps would.\u00a0 Since it was her entry, she got to pick the headline.)<\/p>\n

After the meeting, she and I, along with our entourage of three Catholic Relief Services (CRS) representatives, and a \u00a0driver (our government official escort remained at the school) headed to the local village to purchase materials we needed to build the school.\u00a0 We were a little bit nervous because the price we were given at the morning’s meeting was almost double the price we had budgeted based on preliminary\u00a0 pre-trip estimates that had been sent to us.<\/p>\n

\"\"This is a shot of the “local” lumber yard.<\/em><\/p>\n

Our first stop was a small business – think of your locally-owned lumber yard.\u00a0 We were greeted and seated, and the negotiations began.\u00a0 While children played and dogs wandered around, \u00a0we negotiated for a good price on the sand and cement we needed.\u00a0 Although we didn’t end up with the price we wanted, we struck a deal, and hopefully, several tons of sand and cement will be waiting for us Monday morning.\u00a0 We asked about an electric cement mixer, but the lady could not give us an answer without her husband’s approval, and he was away.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\n Jordan is seriously watching our interpreter add the figures for our cement and sand purchase.<\/em><\/p>\n

We have between 1200 and 1500 square feet of cement flooring to mix, and an electric mixer will make this back-breaking job go so much faster.\u00a0 We tried to hire a cement mixing truck, but they consider our job too small.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nThis is the aisle of the local version of a Home Depot.\u00a0 We had to maneuver over the rebar and tubing that was in the middle of the walkway.<\/em><\/p>\n

After leaving the first business, we headed to another store – think Home Depot.\u00a0 Although the shop’s design and lay-out would be OSHA’s (Occupational Safety and Hazard Administration) nightmare, we were able to have a friendly meeting with two sisters who own and run the business.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nAh, paint samples.<\/em><\/p>\n

They, along with their adorable children, seated us and were able to come up with excellent prices – some well below the estimate – for most of the remaining supplies we needed.\u00a0 Great!!\u00a0 They were happy!\u00a0 We were happy!<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nEverybody was happy after we made a deal.\u00a0 This is the family that runs the big lumber yard.\u00a0 The little boy in the back is 11 years old and has very good English.\u00a0 When we arrived, there were some English sentences on the chalk board beside the table.\u00a0 One of the sentences was “There is a goat in the school yard.”\u00a0 After seeing the cows wandering around the school yard that morning, his sentence made perfect sense.<\/em><\/p>\n

They, too, \u00a0promise that the supplies will be waiting for us at the sight on Monday morning.\u00a0 There will also be a truck full of bricks for us to unload, but unfortunately, no cement mixer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Greetings from Laos.\u00a0 Jordan filled you in yesterday about the business meeting we had with the local school officials in preparation of our Big School Build.\u00a0 (As an aside I need to tell you that I wanted to make her headline “Make a New Plan, Stan”.\u00a0 She said her generation wouldn’t get it, but I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=44"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":125,"href":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44\/revisions\/125"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=44"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=44"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=44"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}