PLAYING VS. PRAYING

I have a new group of friends here in Prang Ku. They are 11 years-old. Mostly girls. And Nui, the boy I live with. He's 13. My second day the girls show up, and they ask me if I can "play" with them. I tried in my best Thai to politely explain that I was tired, and that I didn't really want to play. They were relentless and they kept saying "no, no, play!". I didn't understand why it was so important for me to play with them on this particular day.

They took my hand and started walking me down the street. We walked about 5 minutes and we turned into this grove of trees. Right in front of me was a big, beautiful Buddhist temple. Again they say, "play!". I realized they wanted me to pray with them, not play.

I followed them into the temple. We Wai'd (bowed) to the monks on the way in. When we got close to the statue, we started crawling on our hands and knees until we got up close. We sat there quietly on our knees for a moment. I've never prayed at a Buddhist temple so I didn't know what to do. I followed their lead. We brought our hands together to the tip of our noses, brought them up to our forehead's, and then bent down to the floor with our hands laying flat in front of us on the floor. I watched the kids out of the corner of my eye to make sure I was doing this correctly. I must have gotten a little too comfortable because all of a sudden I hear the girls and Nui say "no, no, three time, no four!". This was followed by their giggling. Apparently you do this repetition three times. Not four. I had no idea.

After this temple, we walked 15 minutes in the other direction to another temple in the Village. One of the girls stopped at someones home to get us Otter Pops. This night brought many smiles to my face. Who better to teach me the ways of Buddhist praying than my new friends? It was such a great ending to a very long day.