Construction continues at the temple, we do the best we can for the animals
It is one of the most famous temples in all of the Kingdom of Thailand so it ends up receiving funding for new projects whenever they need it. It takes a while, but this temple has been planning on expanding and improving the monk housing for quite some time.
I don't have any idea how the politics of monks works, but I would imagine that having an assignment here is considered one of the best "jobs" that a monk can have.
our relationship in the past has been good with the monks here, but unfortunately it has taken a turn for the worse when we asked the abbot (head monk) the be a bit considerate for the cats when tearing down buildings such as making sure that none of them were inside the buildings when they tear them down and I was shocked to find out that the monks are doing no such thing.
There is not a lot that can be done about this. I was just surprised that a monk would have such an uncaring viewpoint towards living creatures. It is one of the most basic tenets of Buddhism that we are to do no harm to other living creatures.
I need to maintain a good relationship with this man though, and honestly, he is the boss and what he says, goes. I can't imagine a situation where he would ban us from entering the temple grounds because we are there only to help the animal population.
I did nearly lose my cool though when I found out that a building had been torn down that the workers were aware that cats were living inside of it when it was demolished. I can only hope that they were able to make it out in time.
It is very strange and saddening to me that this is happening at a temple. But then again, Thailand is home to the famous Tiger tourist temple where it turns out they had been drugging and busing the tigers there for years until it was exposed by international media.
The cats seem to be the most affected by this because dogs, just generally speaking, are frightened away by heavy equipment whereas cats will simply go further into their "cave" to hide.. even if the cave falls down on top of them.
While we were out here on this rainy day we attempted to put the dogs' minds at ease too because they too are very afraid and confused by all the noise that is going on.
You could say that I am a bit frustrated because this temple was very agreeable with us in the past but these days it almost seems like they do not care if the animals live or die.
But we will not give up on our goal and will do the best we can to make sure that all the hundreds of animals that live here can live as happily as possible. Now my concern for the future is that these new houses, when the dogs try to sit there in the shade will they be chased off? To go where? This doesn't seem very Buddhist of them.
Time will tell.
I will be watching the temple very closely and in the meantime I am going to write some letters to whoever it is that is charge of all the temples in the country to see if we can get official permission to help the animals. Up to this point it was just a handshake agreement and I am disappointed that it appears as though we might have to go over the head of the "big boss" of the temple area.
If you would like to see how you can help out or simply spread the word, please visit our website at
http://krabianimalwelfare.org
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