Saturday. January 5. Day 12. Earning merit. 5:45 am. We board our bus and head to Wat Sri Soda, a novice monk school, to participate in the feeding of the monks. The novices walk down the hill barefoot in the dark, wrapped in their thin orange robes. At first they move in pairs or trios, but as it gets lighter almost a steady stream of boys and young men flow down the mountain carrying empty bowls. When called, they stop in front of us. Each of us in the group take turns placing food--rice, main dishes, desert, milk, and water--into the bowl of the novice monk who has stopped in front of us. When we are finished, the novice chants a blessing. Parents who can't afford to educate their children sometimes send their boys to the
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