Life among the monks

27th of September

It's a clear beautiful morning after breakfast when I sit and read my book to slowly wake up from the early morning prayer and digesting the nutrition meal of more rice. I sit by the passing stream in total calm, taking a short retreat to the proper English only books can provide here. There is guaranteed no one in the nearest miles that's able to understand this book, still I've got 20 kids around me trying to follow along in the story.

The breakfast is directly after the almost two hour pray we have each morning. I would call it night however because of the numbers my clock shows at that time, and of course the fact that it's pitch black. After breakfast does the monks tend to their area of cleaning and then some personal studying until lunch at eleven. Then there is more study.

They really study a lot these kids, but usually it's only trying to remember the spares workbooks they've got. You can hear them from far away plowing through the book over and over, chanting the content in a monotone jingle. Usually I try to go around a help them with this chanting, correcting the pronunciation or just giving some encouragement. To actually try to learn them some useful English, like making a discussion or just have a conversation have been entirely impossible. They just don't understand the use for this, which I can understand when every test is on the concept of writing the answers to questions from the workbook.

It's such a brainless learning, but without more founding I can't see a solution. These kids need money for better education, not an other teacher eating their food.

Around four in the afternoon it's time for some physical exercise. Anything from shopping wood to sow on the field. You really feel like a real farmer doing these things, plowing through the field with an old classic wooden tool and big blisters on your hands. The back hurts constantly, but the work have to be done. No one ever complains about anything. Ever.

At this time it's important to pay attention, because suddenly the evening prayer starts. It starts of about the same as the usual morning prayer by rounding everything holy in the monastery three times, but then it's slightly different. For starters we don't use the same temple as for the morning prayer. Either we use a slightly bigger temple filled with instruments and colorful drapery in front of three human sized figures of what possibly could be gods and goddesses or maybe Buddhas, or we are outside.

If you didn't pay attention when it all started you have to do an other round of chanting after this two hour sitting of preaching, before it's time for rice. Even the kids call it "Eating rice", not "Eating food". I found that somewhat amusing. Amusing and sad.

By now it's dark enough to get lost and end up in the stream or latrine, so many go to bed. Maybe because it's dark without much to do with no electricity which often goes out now, or because in eight hours a new day starts off with morning prayer.