The Cherry Thieves

by Hoe Zheng Yi

The Art of Living European Ashram at Bad Antogast, Germany

'You wanna go for a walk?' asked the handsome young guy from Romania.
'Yeah,' I replied excitedly,'where to?'
'I know a place up the hill where they have cherry trees.'
'OK!'
'So let's meet here after 5.00pm when we finish our seva'
'Great! See you then.'
His name is Cezar (pronounced as 'scissor'). We met at the Bad Antogast Ashram at Germany when I was there for a short visit. We were thrown together to wash all the baths and toilets in the Ashram in preparation for some upcoming activity. Despite the dirty job, we managed to talk and joke throughout our duty. I never knew washing toilets could be so much fun.

* * * * *

Nestled among the Black Forest, Saints walked these paths thousands of years ago.

We started our walk uphill in the evening enjoying the cool summer breeze. The view was spectacular at Black Forest, with tall trees that whisper secrets from hundreds or even thousands of years ago (think the Salem advertisement on TV). We walked past our neighbour, with a cow mooing in the barn, and continued chatting easily with each other.

After about 15-20 minutes, we arrived at the cherry trees. I was amazed as I saw the cherries on the trees (now I know cherries don't come from Cold Storage)! The best part is, the trees are full of cherries and I could reach them. He started plucking and eating the cherries fresh from the trees.

'Could we do that?' I asked cautiously.

'Try them,' Cezar replied.

I began eating the fresh red cherries and couldn't stop after the first. Cezar started to climb the cherry tree and plucked those cherries on the higher up branches. Suddenly, it was raining cherries. I tried to catch those cherries sent from above but most of the time missing it. So I ended up picking them from the ground. We ate and ate and ate until our tongues are red, laughing and talking the whole time. He told me he would very much like to be a YES+ teacher some day. I told him that he is going to be a great teacher.

'Do you really think so?' he asked.

'Of course!You have to have confidence in yourself.' I nodded firmly.

He smiled and seemed thoughtful.

'Vrooooooom!' Suddenly, a man on a big motorbike zoomed past us very loudly. Cezar gave a start.

'What's wrong?' I asked. 'You thought it was the owner coming to chase us away, didn't you?'

He nodded guiltily.

Since we already eaten a fair share of cherries, we headed back towards the Ashram, bringing with us some cherries for the other ashramites.

Cherry thieves posing for the camera

 * * * * *

Later that night, Cezar told me that some senior told him that the cherry tree probably belong to one of our neighbours up there and told us not to do that again.