May 30, 2004

diamond in the rough

I figure I should write about my trip to Diamond Mountain before it all fades away. One of my fellow coworkers, Jim, and I went there for the temple building work party. Spent about a week there helping out in whatever facet we could.

I was a little scared when we arrived and Michael, the main caretaker, said to us, “oh, you’re early. We just got the permit for the building yesterday.” Jim and I had talked a bit about what we expected (and didn’t expect) to find when we arrived. We concluded that it would probably be best not to have many expectations at all and our first taste of why came in the first five minutes. We found out that all though we came to build adobe brick, there were plenty of other things to do instead.

Jim is the cook at Vajrapani (amongst other things which don’t fall so nicely onto job descriptions) and Geshe Michael loves his cooking. Once Geshe-la said to him, “you should come cook for me.” So Jim cooks for Geshe-la whenever he gets the chance. He also made these amazing lunches for all of the workers — much appreciated by all. I mostly spent my time putting fill dirt over the top of a newly installed water line. I also got to help do touch up work an apartment for one of the nuns and help install an outdoor shower at the campground.

The second night we were there the book tour folks (including Geshe Michael and Christie) had a little welcome back party. It was very sweet and I spent quite a bit of time just hanging out and talking with Geshe-la and Christie. Even got to see the temple plans and watch them swoon over the cool features like a water heated floor and windows which are perfectly aligned for passive solar. Geshe Michael is very big on “green building” and using energy wisely. It was very nice to see the center being well thought out from the beginning.

Pictures will follow shortly.

posted @ 7:48 AM

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