Afterwards I helped prepare breakfast and we had the same as dinner. One of the Bhikkhunis said that I could accompany them to Pathom Asoke so I went in the front of the bus with my Thai friend.
View from the front of the bus
Unfortunately I could not help much because I really needed to know Thai to help translate. I got to watch the video explaining Pathom Asoke again with the ridiculous, outdated music. They had some unnecessary scene from 9/11 to demonstrate corruption and I could tell that we (the Americans) did not appreciate it. There really was no need to show that clip.
Then the same monk with muscles answered questions from the students. We had 2 translators: one to translate his Thai into garbled English and my friend to translate that English into more coherent English. We met some middle school students who live in the community when we toured the eating area. They were shy yet they wanted to shake our hands and try English with us. They asked questions like "where are you from" and "what is your nickname?" The boys were much more playful than the girls, who acted more reserved. Students at Pathom Asoke eat 2 meals a day and wake up around 4:30 am. They go to bed around 9 pm. I do not know if I could have handled that rough lifestyle at 11 years old. They have 12 monks there and over 100 in the entire Asoke community. The monks, novice women, and some of the laypeople only eat one meal a day. That seems unhealthy and unnatural, but I bet they think the same about my diet.
Mushrooms drying out
I liked these catci...accidentally got my shadow in the picture.
Pathom Asoke's hospital
After the tour, we returned to the wat and the Dayton students loaded up the vans for Bangkok. I gave them all drinks and some of them gave some nice goodbyes. It was weird knowing that I will probably never see them again. My friend went in the van to Bangkok with them, so I said goodbye to her as well. I instantly felt the sense of loneliness once the vans drove off. The students represented America and they made me feel less homesick. I felt like less of an outcast with people just as tall and as white as me. They made me fit in and blend into a group. Them leaving felt like part of home leaving. There were some really nice students on the trip and I wish I could have talked with them more and gotten to know some of them better. I guess it would really be fate if I ever met any of them again.
After lunch, I went back to the room to cool off and get rid of my headache. I called mom and we talked until I ran out of minutes on my phone. I took a nice nap, then showered, washed my clothes, and ate some cereal for dinner. Unfortunately all the English books were on the 3rd floor instead of the 2nd, so I tried to chant from memory again. We had a meeting on the first floor afterwards and I will start teaching English lessons again at 1 pm. I do not know when I start, but I will be ready for tomorrow just in case.
I read some of my Thai phrase book before bed and came across the section about romance. The pick-up lines made me laugh quite a bit. The section for endearing terms like "sweetheart" was titled "Sweet Nothings." I found that a bit ironic because if you call someone a sweetheart, shouldn't you have true emotion behind it? I never thought of those terms as "nothings." It reminded me about the goodbyes I have said to people here. Are my encounters with these samaneris, Bhikkhunis, and visitors all "sweet nothings"? Perhaps I will never see them after they leave this wat, but I like to think that every person who makes an appearance in my life has some sort of purpose, some lesson to teach me. I do not believe in "sweet nothings" because nothing implies that you do not learn from your experiences. And what is life but a compilation of experiences from which we learn and grow?
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