Life in a Temple

During our time in the Village Cong Hai, we were staying at a Buddhist Temple. This was really a luxury because we had our own, lockable rooms, people cooking and cleaning for us and toilets and showers that could be locked. Compared to Aussie standards though it meant- sleeping on mats of a hard tiled floor, cold showers with little pressure, squat toilets, sweeping noises at 4am outside our rooms and Vietnamese food (a pro or con depending on your tastes).

The 2 Nuns and their helpers were all incredibly generous and nice- and 1 helper named Gorbet was the biggest and craziest character I'd ever met! If she wasn't groping us and calling us sexy at Breakky or chasing Ben around trying to pull on his sideburns, she was having a go at me showing too much leg or teaching me how to litter (she seriously to paper out of my hand and tossed it on the ground telling me to leave it there- major litter prob in the Village). There are also 3 girls who live at the temple (photo 2) and help out by cleaning when not at school. The started off very shy but open up a lot and I think really enjoyed having us around- they would never let us take a photo of all 3- because they believed that the person in the middle would have bad luck.
Nun playing Uno.
Nun on her motor bike.
Us helping to cook dinner.
All our beds under mossie nets. We were all constantly walking into strings that held up the nets.

Eating dinner in the temple.
One of the girls hitting a bell inside the temple- they did this the same time each night for about 30min.
The school kids and Gorbet playing with a beach ball.

I was actually hugely impressed with the was the temple worked with the village. Each night they held school for children of the village who couldn't afford to go to school and had to work during the day. They also gave each student a meal- lots of rice- but a decent meal. They found a need and helped out in a way which although maybe an inconvenience for them (school was often on at the same time as their worship time) to into account all the cultural issues (eg. kids having to work during the day time) to fulfill that need.

They helped the community in other ways to- but the school was the main one we were involved in. By Our standards it wasn't that great- rote learning were the teacher pointed and the class just copied everything- We taught some English and the kids just copy everything you say- so you soon learn to shut your mouth and just say what you want them to learn. We also bought a world may and some kids just had no idea where Vietnam was.

The temple also put up with us- a bunch of weird white people who show too much leg when going to the toilet in their short PJ's and laughed at me every time I came back for dinner with cement all up my legs and paint on my face. But they took a lot of interest in what we were doing and visited the houses etc.