An hour later, back at IBEC -- and a Bird's Eye View

 

pagoda at top of hill in mist

Now I am back at the guesthouse at IBEC, and the rain has been pouring down so torrentially that I’ve not been able to go up to the kitchen for lunch, or to see the novices, and the hill walk is probably out of the question.  A woman here who is cooking for the students invited me to wait and join them, and I have an umbrella lent me, so I’ll wait until the rain lifts a bit, then venture a walk up.   

Sunday evening

 So had a delicious lunch of fried “goat” that turned out to be fried “gourd”, as well as gourd soup, chicken bones, and tea leaf salad.  After lunch the rain let up completely and I walked up to the monastery. The school area was deserted, none of my novices to be seen, so I ventured up the hill.

 A white dog, following after two novices, balked when it saw me; it was so very frightened; at last, as I stepped further off the path, it gathered courage and timidly came forward, then trotted as fast as it could while it actually passed me; then, once passed, slowed back to its slower pace as it proceeded down the path, so shy and frightened my heart went out to it.

A few minutes after I’d reached the crest the sun came out, the sky clearing and the late afternoon/early evening bathed in light.  I sat on the steps of the path, the light translucent in the yellow leaves, and watched the sun set, a brilliant, fire-red orb, into the  evening mist.  My last evening in Burma.

All in all, across all the difficult moments as well as the wonderful ones, the journey throughout feels such a graced one, filling my heart to overflowing.

With love,

Zoe

p.s.  The internet would not work last night, nor at all this morning, so I send this from the courtyard of the quiet Bangkok hotel where I've just arrived, about a 15 minute walk from the Grand Palace.  (Bangkok is HUGE, must be as large as at least a dozen if not a hundred San Francisco's piled together.)


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Drawing back for a bird's eye overview of the trip as a whole

The prelude of the first week [Nov 20-Nov 26] in Yangon with the BizLeap trainees and the trip to Mandalay and Sagaing [Nov 27-28] and the first two weeks at IBEC [Nov 29-Dec 12] were quite active with teaching and being welcomed and shown around by everyone. 

The next couple weeks [Dec 13—27], which included the eye clinic opening trip, were open-ended and winging it day by day, but as Aung helped create the Under the Trees Classroom for me, the days took on a good rhythm of time in the hills and special time with the novices of all ages, as well as helping Thuzar and  friends with their scholarship applications.
 

Then, soon as my ticket was changed to Jan 21, everything seemed to go awry, ushering in a challenging week [Dec 28-Jan 3], in which I was helped by the compass of perspectives on pilgrimage and labyrinth, and which became a week of deep, inner time in the hills, in its way the jewel embedded in the center of the journey, and its core.

New Year's was followed by another two weeks of classroom teaching: one last week at IBEC  [Jan 5-Jan 11] and the second week a whole new adventure in going to Phuang Daw Oo in Mandalay [Jan 11-Jan 18] with a triple schedule of classes from morning thru the evening, and its incredible last day with the orphan/ethnic children: a beautiful and heart-opening grande finale.

With a final coda [Jan 19-21] of the two nights and days in Bangkok.