Carolyn Marsden

One day I was at Deer Park which is a Buddhist monastery near my house. One of the monks was giving a talk to the children. He told them about a storm that had destroyed his village and about how the people had had to recover afterwards. I loved the story from the moment I heard it. It also seemed an important story to tell because Hurricane Katrina had just destroyed New Orleans. I asked the monk, whose name is Thay Phap Niem, if we could write his story together and he said yes. Mostly, I did the writing while he swung in the hammock!