Festival!

Another memorable day at Wat Nikomprateep. I had planned an exciting lesson but we ended up participating in a ceremony for a festival parade that was going on throughout the afternoon. All the classes went across the ground to the temple where many men were working vigorously to move a massive float out of storage for the 5 kilometer walk to the stadium. The festival celebrates the end of the rainy season when the monks come out from the temples for religious meetings and local visits.

Our float was absolutely breathtaking: the size of a large boat and painted bright gold with red and green accents. The front of it had 5 immense dragon heads and decorated around the sides were jasmine garlands and sticky rice that we had offered as gifts to the Gods.

It took hundreds of people to move the float out from under the blue canopy protecting it from the rain. The best part about this event was that everyone pitched in to help turn it out of storage onto the main street ready to be walked to the stadium. There was a long rope, perhaps a a few hundred feet, that we all took a piece of to pull the dragons out. Someone led the group together as we all tugged together as a team. This was the perfect representation of collaboration. After the float was positioned correctly on the street a very sacred monk came out to bless us all with holy water and pray to the Gods. He took a special wand, dipped it in the holy water, and shook it over the crowd as we ‘wai’ed him. This was a very special moment for me as I felt like I particularly needed something positive and religious watching over me today. It was sacred being a part of it all and not feeling like I was out of place. We were teachers at our school, just like the other teachers. We were neighbors, just like everyone else.

After the monk made his way to the top of the float everyone grabbed a piece of the rope and pulled him into town. Rupal and David went the whole way, but I stayed behind with my class as they are too young to walk the whole way. I loved playing with all the kids as part of the event as well. We took tons of pictures and had fun playing around being their friends.

Tonight we went to the stadium to see all the floats from other temples, schools, and businesses in town. Each float was guarded by a monk that you could request a blessing from. I went up to one young monk, donated a few baht, and then received a special blessing and bracelet. They tie the bracelet around your wrist very carefully as monks aren’t supposed to touch women. I also saw our school’s float and our monk from earlier in the afternoon. He was particularly busy passing out blessings as he’s more sacred than other monks. We also tried some great food; others experienced the insects I had tried in Bangkok while I tasted corn waffles, candies, and sticky rice from bamboo, similar to the business I saw in Battambang. What a great day.