Learning from one another

This morning I can’t seem to sleep for a long period of time. I went to bed a little before midnight and kind of toss and turn in the night. It is a little after 4 a.m. and since we will depart Bangkok in two days, to begin to head south, I figure now is a better time than any to write. I may not get the opportunity, nor have the time, to fully get my thoughts down later.

First off, you don’t realize quite how long 23 hours is until you’ve spent it with no where to go in an airplane. Nonetheless, when the five of us finally landed in Bangkok, after crisscrossing our way from Connecticut to Washington D.C. to Tokyo to Thailand, I don’t think we could have imagined the welcome wagon that awaited us. The people of District 3330 have been absolutely amazing. It’s funny because language is not the barrier that everyone seems to think it is (Of course, many of the fabulous people we’ve met have spoken English, so it may sound overconfident to say). When we can not understand each other very well, we do take a moment to find a better word that will contribute to understanding. But warmth, kindness, hospitality, the early roots of friendship, these are things that can be communicated without words. It is body language, demeanor and the tone in which you say anything in any language.

Jiraporn reminds me of just how similar we all are when we are on the grounds of the Grand Palace. She is a GSE member of District 3330 who will journey to our District 7890 in April. She and her other GSE teammate Unchalee, Krittika and I visited the Emerald Buddha together. As we move around the palace my team (Maggie, Brett, Jacelyn and our Team Leader Aileen) break off into twos or threes, meet up again, take pictures, chat, keep it moving – the cycle continues. I pretty much have traveled along with Jiraporn and Unchalee not only because they are awesome, but because I really love to hear them explain what each piece of architecture, painting or symbol means personally to them and their people as a whole.

We take off our shoes and sit down inside, pointing our feet away from the Buddha. We talk a bit about Buddhism; I do most of the listening and every now and then ask specific questions about prayer, worship and meditation. This is why I personally came to GSE, for these moments. You see I am captivated with studying and learning about life and how others get through theirs. About a year ago I went to Elms College on a scholarship to study religion. Not because I am taken so much with the acts of worship, but with the reasons people choose to worship. We human beings are ingrained with the need to believe in something. In order to survive in at least a happy existence we all have the inner need to be connected to something or someone - whether we choose to believe in our family, a politician, God, our friends or in the greater good of every human being. Here I am sitting with a woman I met for the first time a day before, and while I don’t know everything about her (she’s still almost a stranger), I know the feeling she talks about when she tells me about what her prayers and meditation mean to her. She finishes by telling me that in Thailand there are Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, but all, each and every one of them, are all Thai.