YOLO Journal Issue 12 - Flipbook - Page 78
spring in the forest nearby. They gave us
the best room in the monastery, which
had a roof. That night, we lay on a hard
mat and couldn’t sleep. It wasn’t just
that we were not in the place we had
expected to be, we couldn’t believe how
these children were coping with daily
life in such ramshackle conditions. And
yet they invited us in and looked after us
with such care.
The next day we attended morning
and evening prayers in the shrine room,
watched over by a huge Buddha, under
the spluttering light of butter lamps in
place of electricity. To be in this ancient
room, hung with thangkas—elaborate
Buddhist paintings—while the monks’
chanting swirled around us, was quite
literally like magic.
We spent two days at Sewala
Monastery. It’s difficult to put into words
what it was like. It was as if we had traveled to another time and place. A kind of
parallel universe unlike anything we had
ever imagined.
Once home again in New York,
we wanted to find ways to help the
impoverished monastery. Initially we
were able to raise money for robes and
books, but it certainly didn’t feel like
enough. What we really wanted to do
was build a dormitory—with a roof!
Organizing a building project on top
of a mountain in a distant country is
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challenge enough. As anyone who has
ever tried fundraising will know, there
were times when we felt like we were
pushing water uphill.
As we gained more information and
our network began to grow, we eventually made contact with the Bhutan
Foundation, a nonprofit in Washington,
DC. Dr. Bruce Bunting, the Foundation’s
then-president, was a veteran of the
World Wildlife Fund. We knew when
we met him we had found a much-needed
ally. The Foundation helped us organize
basic infrastructure, such as opening
a bank account in Bhutan and finding
someone on the ground to oversee the
project. Houses in Bhutan are rammedearth structures with a concrete
foundation and wooden beams. Ours
would be three stories, with classrooms
on the first floor, dormitory rooms above,
and a small kitchen. A local architect and
a group of workers was recruited and
sent to the top of the mountain. Nearly
all of the materials were sourced from
the surrounding mountain area, bringing
a welcome economic boost to the immediate community.
One day, as luck would have it, we
discovered how it was that we had
ended up at Sewala Monastery. We
learned that it is considered one of
the most sacred in all of Bhutan. The
lama who had approved our visit and •
