A Walking Stick

Thursday night, December 5

Dear all,

I finally have a walking stick:  After looking for a stick for days, after the Chinese class today at the adjacent little monastery (FYI, I can now say “I am from America” (or from about nine other countries for that matter) in Chinese), I spotted a promising stick candidate among the many branches stacked for firewood around a tree but apparently it was "ancient wood." 
In its place, they found a straight bamboo that a young may chopped to size

and shaved smooth with his machete, creating a work of art stick.  So tonight I set up the hill along the dirt steps I discovered yesterday but that are tricky coming down without support (I did it ok last night, holding on to branches along the side, but with the stick I am more fearless—and Thuzar will no longer worry about me going on walks alone, or feel she needs to accompany me), then up the long flight of brick steps to the pagoda I’d climbed to a few nights ago. 

This time however, I followed the steps on the right down into and through a near deserted monastery, and past more stupas. 

 (In the Sagaing Hills every fifty yards or so there’s a new stupa or pagoda or long steps leading down to another monastery among the trees.)  By late afternoon the temperature is pleasant, and the light beautiful.  My strategy tonight was to go straight as possible, and on another night to do some of the side paths (hopefully noting carefully enough the directions I turn to not get too lost getting back). 

       Unexpectedly I shortly found myself below the monastery the two young monks had pointed out the night before last, coming from the other direction. Climbed the steps up from there to the path we’d been on, and after checking the path to the right to be sure I was oriented correctly and it was indeed the 30 Buddha Pagoda path,  I continued along the crest to the left, past the little pagoda the young monks had led me to, and along the small road, and past more pagodas and more monasteries, the road leading close to the Irrawaddy river far below, until it seemed to dead end at a monastery with beautiful overhanging flowers.  So I turned around at that point.

I then started back along the path to go back the 30 Buddha Pagoda way, not the steeper way I’d come, but took a side path that led me along the outside of the Pagoda, and then its backside, whose red and white façade was of a whole different architecture.  My little Thai cell phone with its flashlight app was a great help as I explored a low, narrow entrance into a little passageway (which turned out fairly empty).  Explored one more little side path and tiny stupa with the full moon growing bright behind it, then headed back down the easy way I’d come with Thuzar and her friend. 

Just as I entered the IBEC entrance, I ran into the business lady who’d invited us out last night, and she invited me to join her and the others again, who were all piling into the IBEC truck. So they waited for me while I walked to the kitchen to retrieve the backpack I’d left there, and we picked up Thuzar and set off again to the same delicious little café.

Aung had brought me into town that morning to drop me at the internet café, and it had been a Charlie

Chaplin-like scene at the end when I got his call(s) telling me that I’d be picked up soon—I emptied all the sections out of my backpack multiple times looking for my cellphone which had disappeared like the rabbit in the hat, before finally after the third phone call discovering it in my shirt pocket. By that time his phone was busy as we were both on the line calling each other, and when he finally got thru to tell me he’d sent a friend to pick me up, said friend was in the driveway waiting.  However, it turns out in the process I’d left my usb stick in the computer.  So after dinner we swung by, and fortunately it was still there, in the computer.  

 We then drove onto a bridge where we parked to see the lights and the lit-up golden pagodas everywhere.  While we were there a motorcyclist had a spill on the other side; lots of people rushed across.  The business lady explained they don’t call ambulances here because too much money and very unreliable when they’d show up anyway. You also don’t call the police because they’ll want money and not do anything anyway.  The motorcyclist seemed to have hurt his leg, and maybe the cycle, but looked otherwise okay; he was calling someone on his cell to pick up, and a friend waited with him.  Made a mental note to ask Thuzar about borrowing a helmet for me when we go into town tomorrow.  (I’d thought about picking up a cheap one when I was in Thailand last year, but someone said the cheap ones don’t do much good anyway.)

  We next stopped by and climbed up a brightly lit pagoda, which had a special little shrine for prayers for rain; apparently there hasn’t been much this year which is hard for the farmers (though in the village it seems there was a lot of rain).  By then I remembered that my hat was also missing since this noon, so asked if we could again stop by the internet café, and happily the hat was still there too.

Friday

Did an early morning walk in the hills , basking for some time in the quiet of the pagoda at the end of the steps, then this time following the ridge trail to the right. The path led me eventually to a pagoda: I didn’t realize until after I’d been there a few minutes that I was again at the 30  Buddhas Pagoda, come to from yet another direction.

Days begin for me somewhere between 4:00 and 6:00 (depending on if I'm exhausted enough to sleep through the girls' early morning chanting).  Occasionally Thuzar will share a deep-fried platha (a little too deep-fried) or an egg boiled in her coffeepot. Mostly though I will stop in at the kitchen where I'll eat some vegetable curries (sadly overcooked for all the work they generously put into preparing the vegetables), and sometimes a couple boiled eggs (Thuzar apparently communicated I like eggs, preferably boiled). After breakfast I may or may not have time for a short walk; at 9:15 I teach the 2^nd grade class; during the break that follows, I rest or wash and get some lunch in the kitchen. (We wash our dishes on a wooden table outside the kitchen, getting water from the cistern to fill the soapy washing basin, and rinsing them afterwards; the set-up resembles washing dishes when you're camping.  At the other end of the cement slab the novices

will generally be washing dishes and the large pots and pans. (One time I heard them playing hip-hop on some little radio as they were washing the pots.) After teaching the afternoon classes; I generally climb up to the hills, coming back as the sun sets, a red orb into the horizon mist.

 Somewhere during the day, I'll usually stop by the long office counter to check if there's internet connection (usually not). If it's morning or evening, at the other end behind the counter a group of older novices will often be gathered around a flat TV screen, watching subtitled movies.  During the day sometimes the office manager and young office volunteers work quietly on school paperwork around a small table on the floor in the open hall. Part of the day the head monk principal is seated before the golden Buddha shrine at the front of the hall, receiving teachers and guests on the bamboo mat before him. 

Thuzar (and Aung, more from afar) watch out for me wonderfully, helping out with any needs. (I have little or no contact with Lin Kyu, the volunteer coordinator, nor since the first day with Richard the other volunteer: the two of them generally take off in the evenings to a local café for an evening beer and 
dinner, and Richard will shortly be leaving to take care of visa matters in Bangkok.)

Have a good night/morning/whatever it is yesterday for you,

Zoe