Several teams of workers are busy at the monastery, laying water lines, tiling the temple pool, trimming giant palm trees, tending the gardens, moving mountains of soil, and more. So today we offer a buffet of images to give you an idea of what's happening.

Trenching for water piping and optical fiber continued from the San Marga parking lot corner down the pasture slope and to the edge of our water ditch winding through our property and feeding the ponds. The second photo shows the ditch, and Pradip, our contractor, is going to dig a tunnel underneath the ditch to sending the piping through. Then he will continue trenching parallel to the San Marga Path.

The third photo shows a just-painted pyramid structure that will hold about 130 small kumbhas for the first annual Iraivan Temple anniversary pujas on April 11-12. More preparatory photos will come soon.

After over fifty years of being on this land, we are finally bringing a underground water line and fiber-optic cable out to the future site of Iraivan Temple's parking and reception center, then all the way down next to Iraivan Temple.

The photos show the first stage now complete, having reached the corner of the future parking lot.

Acharya Kumarnathaswami and Aditya Vinadhara have continued working nearly every day on the meticulous assembly. Today they expect to finish screwing in the wooden roof boards, having waited for more 6-inch stainless steel screws to arrive in the mail. If all goes according to plan, they will hoist the bell into position tomorrow.

For many moons we have wanted to upgrade the floor of the Banyan Mandapam, an important gathering place for visitors. But it was hard to find the hours to do it. Then Rajen Manick came, a senior member from Mauritius who brings with him considerable graphics and translation skills, and not a few practical abilities. Rajen just finished painting the floor of the 40 by 40 tent, and the 50 foot long walkway. It took about a week (not full time) to paint two coats of durable paint. He was helped a bit by Doug. A big upgrade to the entry of the monastery.

One of the great boons from the county project to widen Kuamoo Road beyond our rudraksha grove entrance, is a large amount of free earth. They are removing earth about two feet wide and two feet deep from the sides of the current road and replacing with gravel. All that earth is being delivered to us for free (otherwise they'd have to pay a lot to haul it much further away.

Most of the earth is being piled up to help level the area of our San Marga Iraivan Temple parking lot, but a lot is also being delivered near our new maintenance building, where our Siddhidata Kulam is using it mainly to raise the ground level where they use tents to store many items like gas tanks, metal resources, lawn mowers, etc. They are also using it to build new culverts in our back road to channel rain water, and another roadway.

Water drainage around our buildings is a key task, since we are blessed with lots of rain.
With several days of drier weather (before these photos taken this morning), the Siddhidata Kulam was able to install long pipes and move earth around to channel rain water away from the new building.

On the San Marga path, one side of Muruga Hill had been paved with rock, and now the other will get the same treatment. With the weather getting drier, Dennis Wong is now laying down the first bed of larger rock, on which he will place gravel and compact it. He is halfway around the hill with the first layer.

Kuamoo Rd is the main route for people to travel from the coast to upper Kapaa residential areas and our monastery. After climbing the main hill, drivers encounter the beautiful Opaekaa Falls lookout on the right side, and Wailua River lookout on the left. The section of road following the parking area is very narrow, with a long, steep cliff on either side. During recent heavy rains, it was discovered on December 15th that "surface roadway distresses had worsened to indicate signs of slope failure" on the right side.

It is quite a significant emergency, with repairs likely taking many months as they plan to insert huge "soil nails" into the cliff and install a shotcrete wall on the slope. This is what they did in Hanalei after a major slope failure yeasrs ago.

Fortunately, at least as of this moment, they have determined that the left side of the road is still safe to drive on (though a weight limit is to be determined). They are installing traffic lights to create one-lane traffic. In our experience so far, the delay is not bad, about 5-10 minutes, though it would be more during early morning and late afternoon rush hour.

The only other access route is via winding back roads starting at the other end of Kapaa town.

The first photo shows the morning results of the biggest rainfall of our winter season so far. Three and a quarter inches of rain fell through the night, accompanied by strong winds which knocked down at least two trees on the property.

In the new maintenance shop, the Siddhidata Kulam is now building a series of cubbyholes for each member of the kulam to have a workspace, complete with a tool cabinet. They are frugally making use of the same wood which was dismantled from the three yagasalas built for the Iraivan Temple consecration.
The roofs of the cubbyholes will provide more storage space.