Rescued Thai boys get set for life at Buddhist temple
The odyssey of a youth soccer team rescued from a Thai cave continued Tuesday when 11 of the boys attended a solemn ceremony and had their heads shaved before being ordained as Buddhist novices.
The families of the boys had pledged to have the boys ordained as a show of gratitude for their rescue from the flooded Tham Luang cave.
Video from the ceremony shows the boys, dressed in white, lined up before a table covered with lit candles and food. The boys prayed, bowed and took seats. A group of monks and others in the audience then took part in clipping their hair and shaving their heads.
The boys, ages 11-17, will be formally ordained Wednesday and spend nine days living in Wat Pha That Doi Wao temple in northern Thailand. That’s about how long they were trapped before the first team of rescuers reached them 21⁄ miles from the cave’s entrance.
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“I hope they will find peace, strength and wisdom from practicing Buddha’s teaching,” the temple’s acting abbot, Phra Khru Prayutjetiyanukarn, said.
The assistant coach trapped with the boys, Ekapol Chanthawong, was a Buddhist novice for more than eight years and will be ordained as a monk. A 12th team member, Adul Sam-on, is not Buddhist and is not participating.
The boys and their coach entered the cave June 23 after soccer practice for a team-building exercise expected to last an hour or two. They hiked in before monsoon rain caused flooding that blocked their way out. They had no food, drank water dripping from the cave walls and meditated to ease their fears.
The rescue operation involved hundreds of volunteers and support from more than a dozen countries, including the United States. On the 10th day of the rescue effort, two British divers came upon the team huddled on a shelf in the cave, shivering and hungry but otherwise in relatively good health.
The complex rescue operation took another week to prepare and execute. One diver, former Thai navy Seal Saman Kunan, died while setting up oxygen tanks along the exit route. The boys were released from a hospital July 18.
Ordination as a novice, or “samanera,” is common in Thailand and does not necessarily lead to becoming a monk.