Day in the life

Hello to everyone!

We are back at the Wat, and taking a break from teaching, to work on our own meditation practices and help out. It is a humble establishment, this meditation center. It's set on top of a hillside overlooking the sea, surrounded by jungly bush on all sides. While development on the island gets closer and closer, it always seems to be set apart, its own world.

Being close to the jungle requires a lot of work. As anyone who has lived through autumn knows, leaves fall and if not picked up, they become sodden messes that don't bode well for the health of the plants underneath. So the picture above of my fellow assistants sweeping and picking up leaves would most likely surprise no one. However, most of you only worry about this in autumn, where as this is a yearlong task here.

One job you may not have thought of is that of cleaning water tanks. Our water is pumped here from an outside spring, and it is kept in tall cement water tanks. However every once in a while we peek inside, and sometimes the results can be surprising! Mud in the bottom, perhaps mold, and sometimes a family of geckos can be in there. We drink this water, so it's in our interest to keep them clean. So how do they get clean? Well, someone (in this case Felix) has climb on top (and inside sometimes!) to do it.

But not all jobs are physical, and occasionally our work leads us to the "computer room", where we cluster around with our Apple computers (very few PCs with this lot) in a tight space with covers over our computers when not in use so that the geckos and/or bats don't poop on them (see the overturned green plastic tray behind Todd to the right? there's a computer under there).

We do have some luxuries here, as once we are finished work if we wish we can go to our fitness center (very close to the above-mentioned computer room) and get some exercise. Check out the jumping rope platform! Very innovative. And that construction with blue pipe is actually a "captains chair" for exercising the abdomen. We don't neglect the body here!

These are just snapshots, but I hope you enjoy them. We are happy to be back and help out again. Hope you all are well out there!

love, Meghan