I touched a monk and did not catch fire

As I have mentioned, I missed most of the introduction weekend including a class on thai culture. I did not know anything really, except for things that I had read. I didn't know how to get to the market, how to exchange money, how to make a phone call, or where to eat!! I even had trouble flushing the toilet, because no one had told me how to do it.(By the way, you don't flush the toilet, you just keep throwing water down the hole until it eventually goes down the drain.)

However, one thing that I heard constantly was that women cannot touch monks. They are not even allowed to hand them an item, such as a pen. I would have to lay the item on a "cloth" without actually touching the cloth, lift my hand up, back up a little and then they could grab the item. So I figured if they kept telling me this over and over again, I should listen.

Wednesday was my night to "monk-it". We do not formally teach the monks, but they want to speak with us conversationally, to beef up their skills. So whatever monk or even community member just wants a little practice speaking English, different volunteers go every night at 7pm to speak with them. On wednesday, Karen, Jerone(pronounced with a Y at the beginning, in case of course you are reading this out loud), and I went to the temple. Side note, there are temples everywhere. There are like three temples on the little side street we live on alone. Just to let you know that its not a special temple or anything, just the one that travel to teach has connections with. Anyways, so we sat down and began speaking with the monks. Some were very fluent, and just needed a little grammer practice, others could hardly speak, or were to shy to do so. As I was futzing with my feet under the table, since I always have to be futzing with something, I accidentally kicked the monk, in like a playing footsy sort of way(not in like a karate sort of way). Because everyone made such a big deal about women touching the monks, I thought I would get douced with holy water, or the monks would all run away screaming, or bhudda himself would come on earth and set me on fire. Of course none of these things occured. He kinda laughed it off and we went on with our conversation.

I was still skeptical though, I was still nervous about touching them. So when asked to explain where I lived compared to New York City (**if you EVER travel out of the country, and say you are from New York people will immediately think the city. It sounds cheesy but bring a map, and show them the distance, maybe even compare it to the distance between two cities in the country you are staying in, so they will see what an insult it is to assume that everyone who says New York means the city. Oh and "upstate New York" means nothing to people who don't live in a country that is split up into states. They think Upstate is another way of staying uptown and they still think you mean the city.), I took out my trusty map and tried to show them. Yet as I was opening the map, the monk kept trying to help me. I was so confused, so I let go, and let him do it. I would then try to show them where I lived and he would touch the map while I was. I was so self counscious that I eventually stopped touching the map all together. I at first thought, that its still a very patriarchial society that by him touching the map, I would have to stop touching it, as like a power hierarchy. It was exhausting.

Later on at dinner, as I am regailing the rest of the group on my potentionally spiritually damning experience, Jerone was like "I bet they just spread the rumor around, to make the western women annxious and nervous. They must have a tally chart just out of reach where they compete with who touches(and of course i mean non-sexually) the most women 'by accident'." Then he mimicks one monk talking to another, "I touched the new volunteer today, she almost went through the roof, I should get two tallies for that one."

Apparently monks in Thailand are not devout buddhists. It is sorta like joining the army or the ROTC in America. You might not be able to touch a woman the entire time you are a monk, but you will be able to go to school alot cheaper then a lay person. Similar to the ROTC idea where the army will pay for part of your school, if you train while you study and then give up a certain number of years once you graduate. Therefore, many of the monks are not too serious about the touching of women and other religious decrees. To them its more of a means to an end.

So in short, I'm not going to hell. I thought you would all be concerned!