Yesterday afternoon Wan Josey (I´m not sure if that is how you spell his name) came. He is a visitor from spain and stays here until the end of January. Im not sure exactly what he will be doing. But it seems he will be working in the garden, since he related that is what he was in his heart.
Later on some things happened that caused me some turmoil, so finally hoping to get some relief elsewhere (from a situation that became stressful to me) I wandered away and found Josey (a volunteer here I trust very much) playing chess with a few kids. So far the score is 1 win for me and 3 wins for him, in our chess history. But leaving this place with a positive win/ratio vs Josey is not so much a concern to me. Josey is the only guy who has a positive win record in chess against me. So far I´ve only played it on being invited, but today I´ve simply declined to play it and probably will either for the next few days or my full duration of staying here. I intend to try and play the local Disney version of monopoly with the kids in its place and hopefuly try to teach and learn the 7 habits through it. The way they play it seems so scattered and shortsighted without applying the 7 habits. For example they dont try to make trades with other kids so they can set up a monopoly and possibly win. Yesterday they also stood up and left in the middle of the game and went to play soccer. As far as I remember few games of monopoly are ever finished and it is only being played as a distraction. I´ve been feeling uncomfortable about chess because whatever way I start playing it I get mentally focused at one point or another along the way like yesterday. Yesterday I played chess so much I couldnt stop thinking about the game and several geometrical patterns that can be formed using the rules for movement of the chess pieces. So far I justified playing chess on the basis that I would only play it when invited, but even that is too much.
I think his name is Josey Migel (I may be mistaken) is here building a tower. I was standing to the right here, giving him cups to stack on and on with.
In that regard, we had a talk about this the same evening. We had a sangha of the buddha meeting about many things and Walter shared a lot about his vision for Yo Creo En Mi worth several pages of notes. But firstly I wanted to mention something that seemed to mostly bother Walter and has not been on the minds of everyone else. Many kids come here simply to play and many parents are glad about this, simply to be rid of their kids. But this is not what YCEM is about it, we are not a creche where you can put your children so you are not occupied with them. Some of the result of just letting them play here is that they are just distracting themselves and are scattered in no productive pursuit of any kind. Any the kids just playing around also makes housekeeping harder. Many times a room is not cleaned because the kids are all over it.
This scattered way of living seemed particularily apparant to me in the way in which the local version of monopoly is played. It is played without purpose or an end in mind and hardly any game of monopoly is ever finished. Kids dont try to make trades with eachother for streets to obtain a monopoly. They just thoughtlesly and aimlesly throw the dice and when they stop they throw everything back into the box very much out of order. Juliana one of the kids some times takes the monopoly games and re-orders everything again. But still slowly some game pieces are being lost, particularily of the chess boards. One set of chance cards of one out of three of the monopoly games is completely lost.
There is also a rule that the equipment at the foundation should only be used for the purposes of the Leadership programs of YCEM and not for entertainment. But it is not enforced all the time, or has not been. So sometimes some of the kids use the computer for entertainment or playing music, and so far they only music which is prohibited to be played loudly. They play the music on headphones though, but even still sometimes so loud you can hear it elsewhere. Most of the time most of the kids do productive things though. But the day stands out in my memory because the kids played a lot of games.
This scattered way of living seemed particularily apparant to me in the way in which the local version of monopoly is played. It is played without purpose or an end in mind and hardly any game of monopoly is ever finished. Kids dont try to make trades with eachother for streets to obtain a monopoly. They just thoughtlesly and aimlesly throw the dice and when they stop they throw everything back into the box very much out of order. Juliana one of the kids some times takes the monopoly games and re-orders everything again. But still slowly some game pieces are being lost, particularily of the chess boards. One set of chance cards of one out of three of the monopoly games is completely lost.
There is also a rule that the equipment at the foundation should only be used for the purposes of the Leadership programs of YCEM and not for entertainment. But it is not enforced all the time, or has not been. So sometimes some of the kids use the computer for entertainment or playing music, and so far they only music which is prohibited to be played loudly. They play the music on headphones though, but even still sometimes so loud you can hear it elsewhere. Most of the time most of the kids do productive things though. But the day stands out in my memory because the kids played a lot of games.
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