So, the next step was to try to convene the family together to ask them all to apply for the land to be split up again, only differently this time. This understandably fell on deaf ears. A2 was receptive; A1 did not want to know. By this stage, A4 was getting wind of all the plans, and now A1 was feeling very guilty for having ostracised A4 from the process. A3 was also concerned about any unfair land handouts from the childless A1, which would disenfranchise her child and grandchild.
Our next strategy was to try and work within the narrow boundaries we had been given. In other words, to disregard plots 1, 2 and 4 and concentrate solely on trying to get A1 and the FiL to split A3 up so that we could at least get our build implemented.
One of the FiL’s old acquaintances, Lung Dtia, who is affiliated to the OrBorTor came along to discuss the plot of land we wanted to build on with his son-in-law Manit (a lot more on them later). His team set about measuring the plot and seeing exactly what kind of area we are talking about. Up until now, I had been using the Chanote as an interesting reference, but had been using Google Maps and Google Earth to get an exact view of the land. Everything I was relaying to the family was based on what I could see from satellite images. The FiL and aunties are mostly in their 50s and 60s, and were distrustful of the information being given to them by this upstart farang. These people don’t go on Google Maps, they only concern themselves with chanote markers; i.e. what they can see in plain view. So, was what I was saying true? How did it actually look on the ground?
The missus was pretty disappointed to hear from Lung Dtia and his team that what I was saying was indeed true. We did not have much land to play with for our project. While the team were there, A1 was called. I had explained my plan to Lung Dtia and Manit. They understood exactly what I wanted to do. Manit was youngish and able to read my map and see the overlaid plan. He got it. A1 came over and told the team words to the extent of “don’t listen to the farang; he doesn’t understand”. This was met with a heart-warming rebuttal from the team: “no, he does understand!”. At this point quite a bit of pressure was placed on A1 by my missus to grant us some of the A1’s land to make our project feasible. Faced with a bit of pressure, the A1 agreed to make our 2 ngan into 3 ngan. Lovely-jubbly. So we had land to make our project feasible. Now we could start to flesh out the house build plans more.