In June 1990, Steven Kaboggoza,24, left his home in the African nation of Uganda to attend college in India.<\/p>\n
His family and kin expected him to return as \u201ca rich businessman with a briefcase,\u201d writes Marjorie Chiew, writing for the Buddhist Channel.<\/p>\n
Seven years later, he came home with a shaven head, wearing saffron robes, carrying a pink paper umbrella and\u00a0announcing that his name was Bhante Buddharakkhita. He also carried scuba gear — which was just as puzzling as everything else since Uganda is land-locked.<\/p>\n
It seems that while at college,\u00a0he made friends with\u00a0Thai monks also\u00a0studying at the university. He abandoned the academic path for the spiritual one, making a pilgrimage to Nepal and Tibet, meeting with the Dalai Lama and eventually\u00a0settled in southern Thailand, on the island of Koh Tao.<\/p>\n
To earn a living, he became a diving instructor.<\/p>\n
Returning home to Uganda\u00a0had its adventures, he recalls. Two frightened children took one look at him and ran away screaming: \u201cThis man is going to eat us!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSome Ugandans thought I was a traditional medicine man (or witch doctor) when they saw me with my monk\u2019s bag and asked what I was selling,\u201d he told Chiew, who reports: “When he carried a big Buddhist fan from Myanmar, some thought it was a shield to protect the body, and yet others wondered if he was the royal bodyguard of the king.”<\/p>\n