Rude Awakenings - Forest Sangha Publications

^0 L E AV I N G H O M E 06to allow us to complete the journey but not enough to ever live in luxury.The rest of my savings, about the same amount again, I had givenaway. But I could still afford to buy food. I had imagined in England thatAjahn Sucitto would go on alms round while I bought food to supplementit. Once we started walking, however, it became obvious that thiswould not work. Away from the towns there was little or no cookedfood for sale, just tea shops. So I put my reservations aside, and then,when we stopped at ten at that first village, went with him on the almsround. I was so nervous as I got my plastic bowl out and pulled on mywhite wrap. Why? Fear of the unknown, of looking silly, of beingrejected? Whatever, I was really agitated as I followed Ajahn Sucitto,walking slowly, into the village.As we walked through the village people stared but no one respondedand I slowly calmed down. When it eventually became obvious that noone was going to put anything in our bowls I felt relieved, even thoughthis meant we might not eat that day. As we sat in the square surroundedby a small gathering of inquisitive faces, I began to open up and enjoybeing there. The man who eventually asked if we had eaten turned outto be the village headman, and we were taken to sit down outside hishouse. That first meal, the simple beauty of the offering and the joy theyall got from having us there, dissolved all my reservations—to say nothingof the food, which was simple yet wholesome and delicious: rice,chappatis, dhal, vegetables, sweetmeats, and lots of curd.During our meal, villagers came in with the last of the rice crop,women, and the young and old, with bundles of cut paddy on theirheads. Oxen were being used to thrash the rice. Walking round in a circletied to a central pole and driven by the occasional whack of a stickfrom a boy, they tramped piles of the stuff. With the end of the middaybreak, men started leaving with oxen to continue ploughing the fields.On the road we saw them at work, making their way slowly up and downthe small fields behind their oxen, some just guiding the plough, othersstanding on it to make it dig deeper.5 5