The Nutty Piece

This is a follow up on a series. To read part 1 click here.

To read part 2 click here.

These are the pieces that I like. I don’t want all my chocolate to be nutty. But I like it. The “nuts” in life that I’m talking about aren’t almonds, peanuts or walnuts. They aren’t the cashew nuts that I so love in my cashew nut chicken.

What I mean by nutty is crazy, goofy, and sometimes just strait up random and weird.

Random is a constant here. Click here to read a post from last year about the random experiences we had at the beginning.

I am thankful for the nutty pieces, they are the days that make me laugh the most. Laughter is like water to my soul – it gives me energy and joy. I feel like since moving to Thailand, God has put a few extra nutty pieces in my box.

Here are my personal examples when I have a day (piece) like this . . .

1. About a month or so ago, we visited another school in the community pretty close to our house. A friend of ours we asked to help with an English Camp Day at this school and she enlisted me and my roommates to help her out. That day happened to be a planning day for us and we weren’t needed in our own classrooms. So, we decide to help. We show up while the hundreds of students are lined up for assembly and the only way to get to where we needed to be was to walk right in the middle of where they were congregated. The looks on their faces were priceless, not sure they’d ever seen so many foreigners at once.

We are given our assignments and sent to our classrooms – we would each be in charge of one station where we worked with 15 kids for 20 minutes and then repeat this as 8 groups would come through.

There are 2 parts to this story:

a) Most of these kids don’t know much English – they get maybe an hour or so a week at their school. I am tasked with teaching them a handful of action vocabulary – painting, dancing, singing, riding a bike, etc. In one group of kids I had that kid (every school has at least one). He’s probably in 2^nd or 3^rd grade. Hair buzzed. Stocky. Cute. Ornery. Absolutely ornery, I could see it in his eyes. And then, he shows it. I reveal the “dancing” card and we go over how to say it and what it is. He promptly stands up and starts jumping up and down, one hand in the air like he’s a gangster and starts rapping in perfect slang “Yo Whazzup Man, Yo Whazzup Man, Yo Whazzup Man?” I look at the 2 kids from 9^th grade that were sent to be my translators/helpers for the day and we just all bust out laughing. This kid can barely repeat “I’m fine thank you, and you?” Yet, he perfectly utters “Yo, Whazzup Man” about 20 times in 20 minutes. It comes to no surprise that when we played charades, he chose the “dancing” card and went around repeating the phrase he was so proud of while jumping up and down. He was so hyper that he slipped on the floor while jumping and almost landed his head into the hard desk – thankful he caught himself because I’m not sure how I would explain myself to the parents, principal and paramedics. How does “Yo whazzup man” translate into Thai?

b) While at this English Day Camp, we meet a guy from England. In his 20’s and in university, he came to Thailand for 3 months just to experience it. He connected with the school and made arrangements for him to live and work at the school, helping a bit with the English program. While eating lunch, we visited with him. (side note about lunch – they made a special dish for us. Pad Thai – which is one of my fav’s – but apparently they ‘westernized’ it by substituting the normal chicken or pork for chunks of hotdogs). We’re talking to this guy and he asks all these questions about America. Then, he asked us if we were “truly religious” or if we just used it to secure a visa? We told him we were Christians. He was curious as to why we were here, why we would stay so long, why we would give up our friends, families, and comfort to work in a school. He didn’t really understand. Then, it’s like a light bulb clicks in his head, he turns to us and with total seriousness he says “so, what are you guys, like modern day nuns?” What do you say to that? After almost choking on my Hot Dog Pad Thai, a smile brimmed on my lips and a nervous laugh came out. We explained that we were not, in fact, modern day nuns.

2. Recently, I’ve had a couple instances with sties in my eyes. No big deal, they make me look like I got punched in the eye, but other than that, they heal themselves in a few days. One of my dear Thai teaching friends who speaks English really well comes up to tell me what Thai’s think about people who have a sty in their eye. Apparently in Thai superstition, they believe you get a sty in your eye if you’ve been peeking at people in the shower. Then, she said that to get rid of a sty, you are supposed to have the youngest male in your family pinch you on the back.

Great, I am seen as a modern day nun who has a “Peeping Tom” problem. Talk about an identity crisis! Not to mention the fact that I need to figure out how to get the youngest boy in my family to fly to Thailand and pinch me on the back so I can be cured of my sty problem! Lol.

3. What do you get when you have 7 Chinese people, 2 Korean people, 2 American people, and 2 Thai people with at least 4 languages shared amongst everyone?

Before I moved here, I would have answered that question with “mass chaos.”

Instead, my response is now “just another day of my life."

Let me explain.

Joel (the director of our school) is friends with a Korean couple who have a heart for the Chinese people. They have a training center here in Thailand for Chinese students. It’s too complicated to have their center in China, so they have it in Thailand. The students will eventually be sent out to work in different countries all over the world. The directors of the center desire for them to learn or improve their English since it is spoken in some degree or another in most countries. This is where I come into the picture. Joel and I have volunteered to spend 1 afternoon a week to teach these Chinese students.

We’ve been teaching for a little over a month now. I currently have 5 girls that I teach. I truly enjoy it, it’s such a fun group of people. They try so hard sometimes to explain something that they turn to me and sputter Chinese and my understanding of Chinese is non-existent. I have my moments where I switch from English into Thai, thinking that will help and quickly realize I am not speaking THEIR language.

Last week, we show up and the guys that Joel teaches aren’t there. They went with the director to a friend’s house to pick up a full moving truck load of stuff that was being donated to the training center. We are ½ way through our lesson and the truck pulls up. Enter random chaos and the combination of 7 Chinese people (our students 5 girls and 2 boys), 2 Korean people (the husband and wife who run the training center), 2 American people (me and Joel), and 2 Thai people (the 2 men in the moving truck). The 2 directors from Korea speak Korean, Chinese, some Thai and a little bit of English. The Chinese people speak Chinese, a small amount of English, no Thai and no Korean. Joel and I speak English, limited Thai, no Chinese, no Korean. The movers speak Thai, no English, no Chinese, no Korean. The 13 of us did not share 1 common language. Some of us did, but not all of us. Enter chaos and laughter as we try to communicate where things go as the men all try to move heavy furniture. I just laughed the ENTIRE time and shook my head thinking "this is NUTS."

Some days I look back on the day and laugh. Random (to me). But I’m thankful for the laughter.

I savor the nutty pieces.

They add to the variety and am pretty sure I wouldn’t like the absence of the nutty ones.