Photos

Young monks at the temple school

I usually find (what I think is) an appropriate title rather quickly. It never really came for this one. My first and immediate idea was “Slick and the outlags”, based on a parody of a rock and roll band of the 50s. Then, realizing I wasn’t sure what “outlags” means, I considered “Slick and the marbles players”. Then, what if that young man finds it sort of derogatory to be associated with that name; it was not my intention to hurt anyone for the sake of a likely not so funny joke. But then what? What were those kids actually? They were obviously pupils at the temple school, but could they be considered “monks” even being so young? My knowledge in Buddhist education was just too limited to answer that question.

Most of these boys were playing marbles when we arrived at the main temple in Koh Kood. After answering the basic usual questions in an effervescent atmosphere (where from, names, etc.), I asked if I could take a group photo. I had not expected the supervisor to join his pupils. I would have preferred not, but go say “please stay aside” while keeping being polite! I don’t think it was that bad after all, and I even chose this one today even though I had the chance to take several more photos later, in more natural poses since they gradually forgot about us being around. For this photo, I took a few shots, concentrating on the expressions and that nobody was unpleasantly partly masked or had a tree or something getting out of their head, but I forgot a bit about the technique and shot it at really low speed. I was lucky that one of them was decently sharp.