On this year’s trip to 
He got a great welcome from his former Monastic Brethren and of course an even greater welcome from his family with whom he spent most of the time of our visit.
During my stay at the monastery the water supply wasn’t working so it was three days before I got the chance of a shower – no small inconvenience in that steamy climate! The only other adventure was when I awoke one morning to see a huge beetle trying to run away with my hearing aid. I don’t know whether it thought it might be a tasty morsel or whether it thought it might be an attractive mate for him!
As regards the monastic life in all its aspects, things are going very well there indeed and they have some fine earnest and talented novices. However there is a very nasty situation arising between the local villagers and the Monks. Some of the villagers say that the Monks should fund the education of their children. This has been a long standing complaint of theirs. But there never was any such agreement.
The old Chief, a devout Catholic, always stood up for the monks, especially against the Pagan element in the Village. However, now that the old chief has died there is no one to restrain them and they have taken to burning the Monk’s crops.
Their valuable Palm Oil Grove was burned while I was there. The Brethren had just finished a hard day’s work digging yams and were just going to bed when suddenly the flames leapt up. They had to rush out in the dark to try to fight the blaze but the grass around the palm trees can be as much as 5 feet high and the blaze was uncontrollable As you can imagine this is a very distressing situation and there was little I could do about it. The Monks have called a meeting with the Village Elders and can only hope that the more reasonable of them will manage to restrain the others and allow the monks to live and work in peace. Meanwhile we can only pray.
