The Whistle

As Maya showed us our room at Khenpo Namdrol's guesthouse for the first time, she handed us two large skeleton keys, cautioning us to always keep the door to our room locked, as well as the outside hallway door, AND the sliding red metal gate. "Hmm...that's a lot of locks!" we thought.

That night, Khenpo sent Lakpa over, the Nepali worker monk who speaks English and went to Catholic school, to our room to explain about which lights worked on the battery when the power was oof. Lakpa requested that we, "On," the porch light each evening so the night guard could see around our building. As the light is directly outide our window, we weren't too pleased, but "On," it we did. Lakpa reiterated that we must keep the doors and gate locked at all times, as our building was, "On the main road," he said, pointing to the small apth running next to our guesthouse and down through the rice paddys. "Many thieves," he said. "But don't worry, the night guard has a whistle."

Then, two days ago, Lakpa announced at dinner that he was moving onto our floor that night--to sleep in the kitchen and make sure robbers didn't take any supplies from the nunnery being built behind the guesthouse. "So you're going to stay up all night looking out the window?" I asked. He said that no, he could sleep.

After the first night, Lakpa reported there'd been no robbers. Then, this morning at breakfast when I asked how he'd slept last night, he said, "Very well thank you."

About fifteen minutes later he told me, "Oh, there were thieves last night."

"Thieves!?" what happned, I asked in surprise.

"There were three, but they ran away."

"Three? Trying to steal the rebar?" I asked.

"No, they broke into the temple!" he replied.

I'd heard the guard blowing his whistle in the night, but thought nothing of it as the guard blew his whistle a great deal each night. "To make sure the thieves know he's there. If they hear his whistle, they won't come," Lakpa had told me.

But come they did--jumping the gate, breaking the lock on the temple door, and scattering the mandala and it's pearls all over the floor. But then, the night guard whistled...and they ran away empty handed.