PRAYERS

I was invited to prayers in the morning by Lama Kunga, the head of the monastery. I asked a student what time they get up. He said at 5am and prayers at 6am. I set my alarm and got up at 5.20. I turned on the light but two minutes later the blackout hit. I dressed by torch light and went down to the main building. There were only two monks awake, though a couple of rooms had chanting coming from them. It was cold and I had five layers of clothing on. In the darkness I wandered around and then sat out the front watching the odd car, truck or motor cycle already headed towards the city.

Eventually a bell rang and monks headed off to the prayer room. As I went in they gave me a woolen cloak to keep me warm. For the next hour they sat and chanted. After forty years of football there was no way I was going to cross my legs but I did sit on the low bench and listened. It continued for the hour, sometimes being broken up by the playing of cymbals, horns and drums. It was peaceful and melodic. In the prayer room were the older students. The younger ones started outside about 30 minutes later.

After prayers we went to breakfast. The younger students were in there and chanting, they were really very good and it was nice to listen to. After the chanting came breakfast: Roti bread and spicy potato, washed down with sugary tea.

Our three lessons for the day went very well. For the juniors we created a colour-in by numbers sheet with a drawing of a head, on the bottom of the sheet it had the names of the parts of the head in english. We drilled them for a while on the names... having them point when I said the name, then they used crayons to colour in the head parts with the correct colour. We thought this was good doing english head parts, numbers and colours. There was a street kid who has been hanging around watching the classes so we slipped him a sheet too. For the two older classes we had to teach hygiene so we discussed what hygiene was then did a mind map of all the things that they have to do to keep healthy.

We did have a lesson off so we walked into the next village. It was a resettlement camp for Tibetan refugees. The village is only small with little twisting lane ways, and a very medieval feel to it... wonderful for a historian. Some of the Tibetans had their craft work out selling it to the odd tourist who passed by. I did find some small Tibetan snuff or opium bottles that someone asked me to look out for. Some were metal and some were covered in jade, so I will have to go back and have another look before I leave. Sunday is our day off but we have heard there will be Maoist strikes on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday so there will be no transport to go anywhere

This morning I watched eagles and the odd vulture cruising past the front of the monastery on the thermals and looking for prey down below us. I have noticed also the dragon flies here. In Australia they are greyish-green, with transparent wings. Here I saw one that had a brown striped body and dark brown wings. And then a different sort that had a green body with red stripes and light brown wings. I could start a dragon fly collection, but the monks might have something to say as they don't kill anything......even bugs.