Reflection time / safety practices/ earning a living

I live on the 5th floor of an apartment building that is on a back section. Between my balcony and the road is a spare section, that until recently, has been populated with regrowth trees. About a month ago people entered the section and began to cut the vegetation down. In the following week in the dead of the night two separate sets of trucks arrived and there was a great deal of mechanical noise. I spied from my balcony after being woken up, that one truck took the undergrowth away. Why does this happen in the middle of the night you ask? Trucks are banned from the city except from 10:00pm – 4:00am. The streets are congested enough with cars and motorbikes without adding an additional layer of trucks.
Lately a concrete pad on the side of the section was being used as a park for motorbikes. Everyone heaved a sigh of relief as rumour had it that the owners were intending to build an 8 floor apartment block. And block it would, my view of the cityscape.
This afternoon 2 men are down building something against the fence which I believe to be a shelter. Why do I blog about this you ask?
Firstly I am impressed by the ingenuity of the two lads below. They have used some rather rusty pipes to make a frame against the fence and now have returned with 2 sheets of corrugated iron to roof the structure with. Good money would suggest a covered motor bike park. So from nothing these chaps are creating a covered space that they can charge 5,000 Dong for a motorbike to park. Its all about eking out a living.







Currently there are 25 motor bikes parked down below, that’s 12,500 a day for caring for bikes. In a week that’s around 80,000 and a month that’s almost 2.5 million Dong. Putting that into perspective I believe the cleaners at my school only get paid 2.5 million Dong a month. My teaching assistant only gets 8.5 million a month. Imagine if you had 50 bikes a day in your park?

I am also high-lighting the non existence safety practices. There are no hard hats, safety boots, scaffolding, welding goggles or council inspections. The chap up on the fence is wearing sneekers the other chap sandals. The chap on the fence is at least 2,.5 meters above the ground, balanced precariously on the top of a iron fence. He is welding the iron poles to the fence, and at one stage is balanced on a pole propped up by the ladder and his nonplussed colleague holding the ladder. This will be a very crude shelter, with the promise of a livelihood. One had to admire their tenacity and ingenuity.