We are blessed

On Sunday, March 2, we went to visit the Udon Buddhist Monastery which is 70 minutes drive from Phnom Penh (which is said Pa-nom Pen.)  70 minutes drive could really only be 20 miles as the dirt roads are not made for driving over 20 mph with many stops for the cows and water buffalo in the road plus the pot holes that could hold large children in them.  The bus easily avoided them by driving into on-coming traffic and the traffic yielded to it.  I am thinking the rule is that the bigger you are the more vehicles must yield to you.  Also, traffic signals are only suggestions.

At the Monastery, we learned that Udon was really a place for charity.  It was a big facility with housing for the Monks, Nuns, boys who had been sent to learn from the monks, orphans and widows/divorced women.  Everyone worked at the facility and everyone was welcome.  The monks have a routine that is kept by everyone. Get up very early, eat, then go to the village to collect the daily donations of food and money.  After that eat again before 11 am then spend the afternoon in study and prayer before going to sleep early.  They do not eat after 11 am every day.  I am not sure about the eating habits of nuns, women and children.

We sat on mats around two monks, making sure the bare bottoms of our feet did not show to the monks. One chanted while the other echoed the prayers for 5 minutes. Then they gave their blessing us by tossing tiny white jasmine buds on our crowd.  They came down like a fragrant summer storm with cold wet kisses when they touched our skin.  I will never smell jasmine again without thinking of that moment.

That evening back on the boat, we were treated to a group of orphans who danced to help supplement the income of their center.  The girls did the traditional Khmer dances with the help of some of the older boys.  The older boys had a dance representing the fight of good and evil (which in Cambodia is the demons vs the monkey solders.) Then the younger boys did the dance of the monkeys and they really looked like monkeys with their little feet scratching their ears and their rough housing.  There was a dance that was kind of like jump rope except they used two long planks of wood.  The children jumped into the space between the wood and then back out before the two on the ends clanked the pieces of wood together.  Since I was easily the youngest guest on the boat, when they asked for volunteers, I was chosen.  It was fun but the kids went slow so to not catch my feet in the planks.

The highlight of the evening is when the boys who were likely around 7-12 years old performed a Michael Jackson Medley that looked move for move like this 1995 MTV performance . This included a boy that had white face paint, loafers and a fedora. We were so impressed that we could not stop clapping.  The kids were having so much fun that they took turns free style dancing to the tune of Gangnam Style.  I will never forget their little faces.