Morning alms

On Tuesday I finally decided to try giving alms. I was encouraged by one of the volunteers mentioning that he had seen monks on their morning alms run around 5:45 on the street outside our guesthouse. He reckoned there were 30-40 monks so I bought 40 individual packets of Ovaltine and asked my landlady if I could join her. She told me to meet her at the end of our lane by 5:40 AM and she provided a stool and shawl (to tie as a sash around my shoulder) and a silver bowl for my packets of Ovaltine. It was a magical experience. It was still dark, with a just-past full moon and clear sky so lots of stars. 4 or 5 women from our lane were there with their sticky rice. I loved it! But I was mortified to run out of Ovaltine in the middle of a group of monks. My landlady then told me that 7 temples come up our street, for a total of 130 monks, although not all monks walk every day.

I have since gone to morning alms every day. The monks go by on the other side of the street and then come up our side of the street some minutes later. They walk barefoot. One day I arrived just as the first group of monks did, which was hectic, so now I get up at 5:25 so I can get out there by just after 5:30. I have been getting packages of 3 small cookies, which come in a package of 60 so two big packages of 60 individually wrapped sets of 3 tiny cookies pretty much lasts me a morning (we all go in when the women I am sitting with run out of sticky rice). The women get up between 4:30 and 4:50 to make the sticky rice for the monks. I am thoroughly hooked on this morning ritual, and when to Phosy Market a few kms away to buy 14 bags of the cookies I give out, so I have enough to go all week (I was having trouble finding the cookies in town and it can get expensive to give anything else). I am thoroughly hooked on this morning ritual, and when to Phosy Market a few kms away to buy 14 bags of the cookies that I give out,(at 15000 kip each, which isn‘t much when you convert it to dollars, but it eats into my budget now that I am unemployed) so I have enough to go all week (I was having trouble finding the cookies in town and it can get expensive to give anything else). I am committed to cutting back on my own food expenditures so I can continue to give alms. Next I just have to work out a nap schedule, since I am dragging a bit with the reduced sleep.

Some things I have learned: We all take our shoes off for this morning ritual. This is easier for those of us sitting and giving out alms. This is tougher on the monks, who walk down our street then head downtown, which means they are covering kms in their bare feet. It is important to be lower than the monks, which is why we sit on stools (or kneel). If one wants to photograph the monks, it is common courtesy to do so from a distance. Too many of the tourists don’t seem to know this and will stand right beside the monks for their photo opportunities. The Lao people will never say anything, but I see many posters around town asking tourists to respect the Lao culture and keep their distance when taking photos.

The monks get up at 4 or 4:30 in the morning and pray before their morning alms walk, after which they have breakfast. The novices will then go to school or work in the temple, then go back to their temple for lunch, which they have to finish by noon. They won’t eat again until breakfast the next morning, They then go to classes or work in the temple, pray in the afternoon (including drumming or chanting).

I have noticed some of the young novices have trouble focusing in morning class, and I can imagine their eating schedule contributes to this. I was working on “how old are you?” with some of the tiny novices in primary school, and was shocked to hear they were 11 and 12 years old! However, some of them come from remote villages and may eat better as a novice.

It’s lovely to watch the orange-robed monks coming up the street. There is one elderly monk who is not well and cannot do the whole walk, so every morning he does morning alms down our street and then heads back with a novice monk on the other side of the street. They are a familiar site now.