Shovels and trees

 The curse was cast and all I had to do was make it work. How hard could it be to give up everything you have , leave the world that you know, with it's security and order to start anew. There would be some small problems I knew, language, cultural and a mindset of the locals which was totally alien to my western ideas. I new nothing about rubber farming, but how hard could that be. You stick a load of trees in the ground, wait 7 years and your in the money, simple. Little did I realize the trials that awaited and the hours I would spend banging my head against a tree. Here things have been done this way or that for 100s of years and no silly Farang [ white man  ] was going to change that.
       We now had 30 Rai of land, 8 Acres  or 3 Hectares. On the first day of planting I set off with my backpack to walk to the plantation. At this time I was still very fit and enjoyed hiking in the jungle or bush walking as we say in Australia. When I arrived at the land I stood stunned at what I saw. There in the field were 15 or so workers of unknown gender, they were all clad in heavy trousers, thick coats, wearing balaclavas and big straw hats. They would have been warm in the snow, never mind in the heat of the jungle. Add to that they were digging holes with little shovels, no more than 3 inches wide, made of bits of flat steel or pipe attached to a stick.  Didn't know whether to laugh or cry, the whole scene reminded me of the kids TV show the Smurfs. This would never do as my plan was to plant 8000 trees over next few years.
       Next day with wife in tow we headed to our nearest town Buntharik, about 27 km away. Now one would think that a shovel, not an uncommon tool anywhere in the world would be readily available in any town with a hardware shore. Not so in Buntharik, high tech tools like shovels had not made it here yet. So off we go to Det Udon, 50 or so km  further on. Now Det is a biggest town around here and has many hardware stores, again we were shown little sticks with bits of steel attached. I was beginning to think the wife was not explaining what I was after. One more hardware store and silly Farang digging imaginary holes in the floor and the woman went and returned with a spade, it would have to do. Buying the entire store spade supply 5 we set of back to the plantation.
     The workers were paid by the hole not the day, so you would think the introducing of this labor saving spade would have brought smiles all around, not so, blank looks were all I got. I picked up a spade, stabbed it into the ground, stood with my two feet on the back of the blade, wiggled it side to side until the blade cut deep into the ground, then pulled the handle back lifting a big piece of dirt from the ground. Still blank looks, as I was about to go and find a tree to bang my head against , the wife started talking to the workers. After what seemed like a hour of discussion she turns to me and says. Jim they are not stupid they know what a spade is, but they can't use it as they don't have boots. I looked to the ground and every worker had a pair of thin rubber sandals on. I won't go into the work boot saga, but suffice to say if you have never had a pair of shoes on in your life no Farang is going to get you to  wear work boots.