Olympus OM-2N | Fuji Neopan 1600 | Fomaspeed Variant III RC
Buddhist Missionary Society, Jackson Heights

Many monks were forced to flee Burma after the Saffron Uprising in September 2007. Ashin Nyaninda spent 8 months teaching at Mae La and Ohm Pyan, refugee camps in Thailand. Later, he found a new home among Laotian monks in Georgia.

The devout young man on the left was a monk in Burma as well, but could not survive on alms once resettled in Virginia. Nusan likened it to learning to become human for the first time. Perhaps not surprisingly, he didn't want to talk about abandoning monkhood.

Both were visiting New York, but while Ashin Nyaninda was spending three full weeks here, the young man headed out to the bus station after lunch--because like most lay people, he probably had to work on Monday.