bhutan - Buddhism, Gantay Gompa

At the top of the three ladder climb I came to a beautifully painted balcony, lit from the windows in the ceiling above and tightly hugging the four walls of the space.

As I looked over into the darkness I could imagine the Buddha statuary below on the first floor. I imagined some to be, as I had seen in other monastaries, well over a 10 - 15 feet in height.

Even in the darkness it may have been possible to see outlines of the Buddhas but for the workers situated on thin planks about five or six feet below the bottom of the balcony. In the barest illlumination there under the balconies, they were continuing the stencil painting that you see in the first picture here along side the foreman.

It was more than dim where they were - too dark for any pictures - and rainy day cold. The sight of the men at work in the dark and cold on that precarious scaffolding three levels above the ground floor stunned me. The image is still vivid in my mind's eye. What was more memorable, though, was this: the men were singing and when they weren't singing they were joking and laughing. I will not make explicit what is implicit here about happiness but I am moved enough by the memory to testify with more than little emotion that these men appeared to be, indeed, happy.

Picture one is the foreman. ( The image of me hanging over the edge of the balcony to take this picture must reside in your imagination.)
Picture two is stencils and things used to make them that i found on the floor of a little room off of the space described above.