When I started this blog I promised myself that I was going to tell the story as it happened, no jumping back and forth if I got behind. I'm breaking that rule. Last Monday was the monastery picnic, it was mostly for the student monks, but a few teachers also came along and I was also invited and went. It was a great experience and produced a treasure trove of pictures.
Before breakfast on Monday morning, December 9th, two local buses pulled up to the monastery gate, the first one was filled almost immediately by an enthusiastic pack of student monks and was quickly off to the picnic site, a park on the west side of the Kathmandu valley. The second bus took a bit longer to fill, as those in charge of the day rounded up the stragglers, like me, but soon enough we were off on the 40 minute ride to the park. It was a cold morning, probably in the low to mid 40's, but the bus warmed up quickly as it was filled to a bit over capacity. When we arrived at the park everyone got busy carrying the food and cooking supplies, including burners and propane tanks, to the area, deep within the park, that the monastery had rented for the day. When we got there the cook, his monk helpers and a lady helper, who had been hired for the day, quickly got busy cooking breakfast, while the rest of us checked out the site, which had several adequate sites for games. But mostly we huddled around trying to keep warm as the sun had not hit our site yet. The Kathmandu area being a large valley in the mountains, between 4 and 6 thousand feet, warms up quickly as soon as the sun hits but also cools almost instantly when the sun goes behind a mountain.
A half hour later breakfast was ready, eggs, chapati bread and the sun was finally peaking over the mountain. Soon after breakfast was finished monks began doffing their robes, revealing sports shorts and football, soccer, shirts, a few even pulled out soccer cleats and the football games began, as did a cricket game on a further field. Nepal and India are said to be even more cricket crazy than the British. Just after the sporting games began some other monks began card games under the shelter that came with our site, all this accompanied by music from a sound system and music from smart phones. It was quite a scene. I wandered around checking out the games and card playing and then wandered over to where the cook and some monks assigned to kitchen duty were chopping veggies and preparing for lunch. Having nothing else to do, my knees aren't quite good enough for field sports any more, I grabbed a knife and relieved one of the monks from kitchen duty. As we talked and joked we worked through quite a pile of potatoes, tomatoes, greens, mushrooms, onions and peppers. We were preparing a lunch that would turn out to be huge and varied compared to the usual meals at the monastery. I did kitchen duty for an hour or so, till all the ingredients were chopped and ready to cook, and then walked around a bit more taking in the varies games in progress. Some of these monks were quite the sportsmen, playing hard and having a lot of fun in the process.
It was fascinating for me to see all these monks, who in their robes and shaved heads look a lot alike, display their individual personalities. It's not that those personalities were not there before, it is more that the outsider has a harder time seeing them behind the robes and shaved heads. It also became ever more apparent to me that these were elementary, high school and college age boys, with all the characteristics of their more secular counterparts, full of energy, fun, mischief and curiosity.
Soon lunch was ready and the mounds of food in the pots filled plates to overflowing and was eaten with gusto. Some plates were so full I was sure they would never be finished, but not a morsel went to waste, a Buddhist trait. During meals if a monk ends up with to much food he will walk around the dining area until he finds someone else to take it, even the few grains left are carefully put aside to fead the very pleased dogs. A huge amount of food was consumed, I must have eaten that much when I was younger but it was hard to believe.
After lunch there was a period of sitting in the sun and enjoying each other's company before the games started up again, this time we were also treated to some energetic and very secular dancing to the music by some of the monks. I spent a lot of the afternoon talking with some of the older, college age, monks, playing cards with the grade school aged kids and generally having a very laid back afternoon.
A bit after 4 PM as the sun went behind the mountains, and the temperature instantly seemed to drop 5 degrees, the games wound down and some clean up began. We had to again haul all of the equiptment we had brought with us through the park to the entrance where the same buses were to pick us up at 5 PM. We got everything there in plenty of time but the first bus didn't get there until about an hour late and the second one, that I rode on, was even later. We passed the time talking and exploring the night sky with the help of a great star locating program on one of the monk's smart phone. As the bus ground its way up the steep hill back to the monastery the monks sang along with the popular Nepali and Hindi songs on the buses sound system. We got back a little past seven and I strolled back to my room, took a shower and headed to bed. It had been a great day and I realized that I felt very at home and comfortable and, after today, many off the monks felt more comfortable with me. I slept well.
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