Mr. Smiley

I am sitting here in our old school that we are no longer allowed to conduct classes in and I’m eating a something that I was told is both a fruit and a vegetable (a hybrid perhaps?) that I have no idea what it is and it’s a mix between a sweet, flowery and bitter taste. It has the consistency of a fresh peeled potato with celery like strings . . . it’s really hard to describe and I’m not sure I like it . . . but I keep eating it, kind of addicting.

We are still conducting classes with our children at another school but they have other teachers as well so today is an off day for me and I’m not required to teach. So, I wait. Wait on a task of something productive to do (it’s a long story that I can talk about another time - - - -we are in the midst of a lot of transition with the school). It is fun though to hang out with the Thai speaking teachers and laugh at them and allow them to introduce me to random foods and new songs (all in Thai of course) and speak broken Thai (for me) and broken English (for them).

I am being productive (at least I was until starting to type this) by studying Thai since I have a big test this week on our first book. Language study is going okay . . . some days I feel like I know what I’m saying and I can actually speak in the correct tones and some days I feel like I’m not able to communicate at all. Take for example . . . yesterday. On our way home from the other school (which is about 40 minutes away from our house), our co-teacher’s car died not too far from our house. Her husband came to help her with the car and we decided just to walk home. As we went through the front gates of our neighborhood, my roommate Emily and I decided to try to engage in a conversation with Smiley. Smiley is the nickname we gave one of our guards at our neighborhood who has the best smile in the world. He is all professional with everyone and salutes them as they drive by but as the mature Americans we are, we wave our hands like crazy every time to make him laugh and smile. Whenever we drive into our neighborhood, we hope that Smiles (another version to Mr. Smiley’s nickname), is on duty because his smile is contagious. We are convinced that God should use him to be at the front gates of Heaven . . . that’s how encouraging his smile is. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not telling God what to do . . . just a mere occupational suggestion ;). We have always wanted to say something to him but never knew what to say and are always in the car. Well, yesterday, we were on foot so decided it would be a perfect time to say something to him. We said hello to him in Thai and he started talking to us in an unrecognizable tongue. Joel and Marvel think he may speak Northern Thai and that’s maybe why we couldn’t understand a single word that came out of his mouth and he couldn’t understand a single word that came out of ours. It was like watching a Japanese film where the words that were coming out of his mouth were not synchronized with how his mouth was moving and I am convinced some words came out after he stopped moving his mouth. We just kept on trying and trying to make some sense to each other and finally a truck came by so Mr. Smiley turned to do his work and we waved and said goodbye. We were a little sad because we’ve always wanted to talk to him and be his friend . . . but I guess we can still be friends through waves and smiles. I am learning that non-verbal communication is sometimes more effective than verbal communication. A smile goes a long way! J

By the way, I took another bite of this fruit and now that I’ve finished it, I am convinced that I don’t like it. But never fear, the Thai teachers ran over and filled my bowl up with another random fruit!!! This one is like a miniature pear but very bland and smells like it’s sweating - - - can fruit sweat? Hummm, weird. I just popped a Werther’s Original (from the great USA) into my mouth to get rid of the sweaty fruit taste.