Very Superstitious

I was innocently walking to class last week when, much to my horror, I discovered a severed pig's face on a table just outside my classroom. There were burning sticks of incense protruding from each of the eye sockets and other various, roasted innards lying around on plates. The hallway stunk of pork and smoke. When I inquired about this, the students seemed just as clueless though they didn't really appear to be disturbed. I soon learned that the whole thing was an offering to the spirits in our building. Apparently, the building caretakers had been observing some suspicious activities in the building at night. Lights and air conditioners had turned themselves on and people were witnessing bits of fog in the corners of rooms. Furthermore, most of the buildings on campus had had spiritual cleansings about once a year but it seemed that our building had been overlooked for the past decade. It was very likely that the bad spirits had started to multiply in the building.

This all lead the director of my program to organize a kind of "building exorcism" which occurred yesterday. Of course, classes were suddenly cancelled and everything was put on hold. Nine monks were invited (it MUST be an odd number) to expell the bad spirits and bring good luck to our school. Our library room was cleared and the entire room was wrapped in thick "sai sin" which is to say that there was a white cord going around the perimeter of the room and even outside of the windows. The monks arrived and we all knelt before them and listened as they chanted for what seemed like forever. I always feel a bit emotional and spiritually enlightened when I listen to them but after 30 minutes on my knees, I was feeling that I didn't care anymore if our building was haunted. The head monk burned a candle and let the wax drip into a bowl of water which he then stirred with some sticks. He generally spoke in Pali which is just as foreign to the Thais as to us. It was funny because he was about to pray and he suddenly said, "Listen to me" in English. All the students and teachers were cracking up cause they didn't expect him to speak English. Then he walked around the room and thoroughly doused us all with holy water. All of the teachers presented offerings of food, toiletries and money to the monks and then our school fed them lunch. I'm not sure, but I think the energy in the school today is a bit more positive and I haven't seen any fog lurking anywhere :)