Yong Yut and Pwo Hostel Building Projects

 

Duane leaning on a post of the Pwo Hostel as it looked
when we first arrived in Mae Sariang

The initial Pwo Hostel was a single main building housing male and female students as well as the hostel parents and their children. It was good enough for a start but not up to Thai government standards and not adequate to meet the demand for space as the program grew. So the goal was to have two dorm buildings, one for male students and one for female as well as adequate cooking, eating, meeting, homework space, toilet and bathing space, a reliable water supply, etc. As Marcia took the reins from the Liljestroms and Eva Quist, some of the building projects became our responsibility.

For these early projects, we were glad to get to know Yong Yut. He was a Lawa Christian whose church was a product of New Tribes Mission work in the area. He was also the husband of Ratana, the young woman that helped us at home. Yong Yut was a great carpenter and all-around builder and did a good job for us. He was also good about helping us look after the budget and helping us find the needed supplies.

Hostel father and students hauling cement to fill in 
footer for the new fence at the Pwo Hostel

In an earlier post, (see June 1, 2025 – Of Forests and Trees – Continued) we wrote about some of the
legal issues in obtaining lumber for building projects. Traditionally, the forests were available to all, trees were cut, the logs hand-sawn into the needed sizes of lumber, and projects built. But by the 1980s, it was decreed that the Thai government owned all trees no matter who owned the land the trees grew on. Cutting trees, sawing logs into lumber, transporting the lumber and even having lumber piled in your yard was all under government control and illegal without government permits which were only available to big-time logging interests and sawmills. If an average person was caught cutting trees or being in possession of illegal lumber, it meant steep fines and maybe imprisonment.

Yong Yut (on ladder) pouring cement to make a 
post for the new fence

Mae Sariang did have a local sawmill where legal lumber could be bought but the price was exorbitant. In the case of the Pwo hostel, mission budgets were such that paying for legal lumber would have been cost prohibitive and made the project impossible. In any case, common practice was to use the hand cut, illegal lumber whenever possible. Apparently, there were certain people roaming the mountain forests, often at night, cutting trees and operating hand powered saw mills. Once the lumber was cut into the necessary sizes and lengths, in order to draw as little attention as possible, it would be hand carried to the building sites in Mae Sariang in the dead of night. At the building site, the wood would be put in place or at least, tacked up onto some existing structure since once the wood was “used”, it became legal.

Pwo Hostel after the new fence was completed

Yong Yut understood the system and knew when we needed to get legal supplies and when we could
save some funds with the illegal. He knew who to contact to get lumber, knew when and where it was OK to smuggle it into place and knew how quickly he needed to get it put to use. In all the years we knew him and used his services, we never heard of him getting caught or fined and he managed to keep us from getting fined or jailed so we doubly appreciated his work.

One of the first projects Yong Yut helped us with was building a fence around the hostel property. Actually, he did one fence around the hostel which had a brick/concrete base and wood top and then a second, all wood fence around Ladda’s new house (which he also built). Throughout our time in Mae Sariang, Yong Yut helped us with a number of projects and even built us a piece or two of furniture.