The Difference

Some thoughts about being different, inspired by ginko poop and a strange breakfast.  Check it out at Bread and Honey.

 

"Are You A Banana?" And Other Linguistic Riddles

 Basically this is my language learning strategy right now.

One of my hopes and a specific goal of my time here these three months is that I can dramatically improve in my Thai language skills.  I know it seems a stretch to think that I could actually gain any level of competence in any new language at my age, let alone one that has a completely different script and is inflected with five different tones.  But I'm ignoring the stats and forging ahead anyways.

It's slow work.

My guess is that at this point, despite all my valiant efforts at home between trips, and when I'm here immersed in it, I still sound basically like a toddler.   It would be the Thai version of  'pasgetti' instead of spaghetti, most of the time.  

My teachers are all so very patient and encouraging, which helps.  And I've perfected the tones of a very few phrases so that I seem to be understood even by strangers in the initial exchange of first meetings and small talk.  Hello.  How are you.  Did you sleep well?  Why yes, I slept very well, thank you.  Nice day.  Today I'm going to Chiang Mai. God bless you.  Please and thank you.  That sort of thing.

One of the most important hurdles to overcome in learning a new language is the fear of making a fool of yourself.  It's very humbling to realize you sound like a very young child.  Hard to manage an image this way, that's for sure.  And you have to be willing to make mistakes, which is harder for the more perfectionistic personalities like mine. 

But sometimes, the mistakes are just fun.

Handy snack dispenser.

Two words that sound very similar to my untrained ear are the word for banana - gloo-way (emphasis on last syllable with a rising tone. I think) - and the word for fear - gloo-wa (emphasis on first syllable, with a falling tone. I think).  The emphases and tones are subtle, however and hard to hear, for me.  For my Thai friends they are two completely different words.  And as an English example, say the words 'shirt' and 'church' out loud.  To a Thai that's exactly the same sound. 

I learned the names of fruits pretty early in my studies, and the word for fear came up later in a real-life situation (best learning moments usually).   Gloo-way, that is, 'banana', seems to roll off my tongue much easier. 

So when one of the children tells me they have a school test tomorrow, for example, it's actually not uncommon for me to ask them, "Are you a banana?"  This is confusing to them, I find.  Until I see the titled head and confused look, realize my mistake and correct my pronunciation.  At that point we usually have a good laugh at my expense.  "Of course I'm not a banana!  Oh Ahjahn Ruth, you are so silly!!!!"

Yesterday in the car I was trying to remember the phrase for 'good mood.'  It was how we were all feeling, I think, given Yupa's Mom only had to wait three hours to see the doctor instead of eight, and we are all happily heading back to Hot Springs with the afternoon before us. 

My mind was able to retrieve part of it.  'Aroom', which is the word that most closely corresponds to 'mood' in English.  But I added 'jai' to the end, which means heart.  'Aroom jai.' This was a logical guess given that many words in Thai seem to focus around the word for heart. 


'Di jai' means 'happy' or, in the right context, 'happy to see you.'
'Noon jai' means 'encouragement'.
'Tok jai' means 'fright', literally 'fall-heart'.
'Tom jai' means 'humble', something language learning will help you along with quite nicely.

So for me to put 'aroom' and 'jai' together seemed like it might work.

Apparently not. 

I collected my sentence and then spoke out loud "Too kuhn aroom jai wani," I said with unmerited confidence.  'Everyone is in a good mood today.'

Slight pause.  Then the car erupted in laughter.  I was corrected very quickly.  'No, no....Aroom di. Oh Ahjahn Ruth!!!'  and dissolving into laughter again.  I suspect I said something quite inappropriate and/or embarrassing, but I can't be sure because they refused to tell me what 'Aroom jai' actually means.  And here I run the risk of perhaps having just been vulgar a few times again, merely by repeating this story!

As the laughter settled down, Suradet wanted to reassure me, so he said in English, "Ahjahn Ruth, no fear.  If you no speak straight, I tell you."

My turn to laugh, not so much at the mistake but at the irony.  So I repeat an agreement we have between us already in this mutual language learning thing we're doing.  "Thank you Ahjahn Suradet.  And if you don't 'speak straight' I will correct you as well."  They got it.  More laughing, all of us.

We certainly were in a good mood, by then.

Isaiah 50:4 has been an intriguing verse for me throughout my journey into ministry.  It has taken on even more meaning now.

The Sovereign Lord has given me an instructed tongue

to know the word that sustains the weary.

He wakens me morning by morning,

wakens my ear to listen like one being taught.

I wonder if the point Isaiah was making was that you can't hope to have any sustaining words for weary others until you've spent a lot of time just listening and learning yourself.  It certainly reminds me that, right here and right now, I am very much in the posture of receiving, of student, of someone who can only speak baby talk. 

I will confess to a moderate amount of mental fatigue at this point in my stay.  One month in, I recognize the extra effort every conversation requires, and the new neurological pathways my brain is courageously trying to create, every single day.

But the fun of it, the joy of it, the knowing deeper my Thai family, their culture, how their thinking thinks and feelings feel....so worth the effort. 

And basically, it all puts me in 'aroom

di'.

New Territory

Today I am Samwise Gamgee, pausing at the edge of the Shire.  With a sudden stop in his stride, and not a little anxious, he marks a line.

"This is it.  If I take one more step, I'll be farther away from home than I've ever been."  

Only for me, it's not one more step, but one more day.  Tomorrow I will pass the three week mark.  That's the longest I've ever been in Thailand before.

To be honest, I almost didn't notice.  This day has been just one in a string of increasingly pleasant days as the jet lag and preparation/travel fatigue have worn off and the temperatures have come down just a little.  One day among others that are settling into good rhythms of work and rest and play.  There's a normalization happening.   I'm finding my groove, and it's good.

Leave the guest house in the dark at 5:15 a.m. to head over for morning worship.  Spend the first 30 sleepy minutes of the day focused on the Someone who brought me here in the first place, in prayer and song, and in Suradet's morning encouragement to the children.  Breakfast is always a pleasant surprise.  Then some solid concentration time at the table with my computer and/or kindle reader soulishly engaged in the learnings I've come here to acquire, ponder.  Or preparing sermons for Sunday morning or the prison visit planned next week.

By 10 or 10:30 the heat has built up and it's time for a break anyways.  So I might head down to the dining shelter and bring markers and paper and initiate a creative frenzy of sorts....if the children are not at school.  Or just sit for a few moments in companionable silence with Pi Dao (cook and nanny),  Or or go for a walk with Yupa and sundry kids in tow, to the chicken house to see how the dog-wounded ones are faring, and maybe feed the fish in the pond.  After lunch I retreat to my room, read, usually nap in spite of myself, put final touches on tonight's English/Devotional lesson.  And then almost every other day, go for my 1 km swim.  Back in time for supper, then evening worship (where we've advanced to verb tenses!), and then back to the guest house to do some processing and writing until I just can't stay awake any longer.

Embedded in the day is this perpetual language learning that presses me mentally enough that the times alone in the guest house become as much about resting my brain as escaping from the heat.  And inherent in that language learning is the need and the joy of being fully present with whomever it is I'm talking to.  Focused attention, deeply engaged, fully present; there's a lot of that.

And it all feels more and more normal.

There's always a few odd and unexpected moments when I am reminded that I'm 'not in Kansas anymore'.  Like when there are live crabs in a bag on the kitchen counter.  Or when I come across a squirming mass of large, bright orange fire ants swarming over a dead scorpion.  Or when I'm the only 'farang' at the market and it's clear, from the not so discrete double-takes and the surprised comments directed towards Yupa, that this small village doesn't get a lot of tourists.  In those moments I remember that, actually, I'm not at home.

But most of the time, I feel at home.  With the advantage of this being my 15th time here, this life is feeling more and more 'normal'.

In an odd way, maybe it's this normalization that marks this never-before part of the adventure.  I'm not sure I've been here long enough to feel quite this acclimatized.

At least, that's how it feels this side of tomorrow.  Tomorrow is a new thing.  A never-before thing.  And there are some potentially disorienting events planned, not the least of which is an overnight stay at the village where Suradet's parents live.  I'm told it's an 8 hour gut-churning drive up the mountain to stay in a one room house with no running water and the need to sleep in a mosquito net.  I'm wondering how 'at home' and 'normal' I'll feel then.  

Frodo's response to his friend seems full of the foreshadowing great stories are famous for, and make me curious as to what these next weeks will reveal.

 

"Come on, Sam. Remember what Bilbo used to say: 

"It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. 

You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, 

there's no knowing where you might be swept off to."

Set Back in the Chicken House

One of the things I admire so much about both Suradet and Yupa is their initiative and creative stewardship of the resources they've been given.  The new chicken house is a great example of this.

Way back on the new piece of property recently acquired with the help of the Korean Methodist Church, this project has been a focus of time and energy for the past several weeks.  By the time Ken and I arrived on September 16th, it already housed 10 hens and one rooster.  Then, just last week, 20 more birds were added to the collection.

The idea is to have fresh eggs, and also, as is prudent, fresh chicken to feed the kids.  Not unlike many Canadians who are concerned about where their food comes from, Suradet and Yupa seek to glean as much from the land as possible.  Only their motivation is more economic than anything else.

So when the full allotment was completely installed in the chicken house, there was a certain sense of, "Yes, here we go with this project.  Let's see what these birds can produce."  Suradet especially seemed very excited.  I think that was Friday.

Sunday afternoon there was a special event involving the young teenagers here.  It involved excited kids packing up music equipment and musicians, and heading off to Doi Saket, about 30 minutes away.  Someone was required to feed the chickens just before we left, since we wouldn't be back for regular feeding time.  And that someone, in their rush to be ready to leave, left the door to the chicken house unlocked.

That's when some neighbourhood stray dogs saw their advantage.  Must have been noisy, I imagine.  Because when it was all over, all but 19 chickens were dead.

Monday morning Suradet informs me.  I find myself truly sad and disappointed and perhaps even angry.  Come on!  These are people of meager means, doing their best to be participate in meeting their needs.  We just got those chickens!  With no time for any turn around on the investment, not one egg laid, this would be a complete write off.  Hardly seems fair, somehow.

Suradet observes my face, and smiles.  He gives a Scripture reference in Thai, and I look it up.

1Thessalonians 5:16-18

Be joyful always, pray continually;

give thanks in all circumstances

for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. 

The irony of this is not lost on me.

See, this is not a patronizing pastor too quickly defaulting to platitudes when attempting to correct the attitude of someone experiencing trouble.  I've seen these verses used that way, and to be honest, I've done it too.

But in this moment, this is not that.

This is the afflicted one reminding the angry privileged one  - who expects life to go her way all too often - that joy is a choice, and prayer and gratitude are better weapons any day against life's set backs and challenges.

"We will start again", Suradet affirms, "And tonight we eat lots of chicken!"


And while I'm not all that sure how I feel about eating meat that was slaughtered by wild dogs, I realize that I have been corrected in the most startling and gentle of ways by someone who clearly has so much to teach me. 

A Two-Things-Only Day....Wait, Make That One

At one point this week I started to map out my lists. 

As much wonderful fun as it is to be at Hot Springs, the true fact is that I am here primarily to fulfill the requirements of not just a Pastoral Internship, but also a Directed Reading and Research credit through Tyndale.  There's work to do.  And if I don't map it out, don't 'reverse engineer' it all, then by default I'll come to the end of my time here and it won't be pretty.  Not academically, at least.

Today is Friday.  I have to remind myself, because in the first-days disorientation of so-not-my-regular life, nothing feels like a normal day at all.  Not yet.  So today is Friday, and my first day here without Ken (the hard goodbye I'll save for another blog post when I'm over it, I think, maybe), and I had it in mind to start on the lists as a means of distraction.

But Yupa needed to go for a regular check up, scheduled with her doctor at Lanna Hospital in Chiang Mai.  Would I like to go?  This was totally optional.  Yupa warned me that she didn't know how long it would take, but she also said that afterward she'd like to go to the downtown core, uber-Thai-style food market for some regular groceries.  Having been to both the hospital and the market on previous trips, I knew more or less what I was in for, and I really loved that particular food market, so I said, Sure. 

The market is fascinating.  Think St. Jacob's Farmer's market only without any refrigeration, safety or health restrictions, and a lot of really weird things for sale to eat, like bugs and stuff.   And then jack up the temperature to about 45 C, cooking under a metal roof in cramped quarters.  Lots of fish.  Lots of flies.  Smells mostly like fish.  Yeah, like that.  And since I'm in for experiencing Thai life as much as possible, the food market was somewhere I was keen to go.  The hospital, not so much, although I learned a lot from my last visit.  And the wait, no worries.  I have my Kindle reader with a LOT of required reading loaded onto it.  I was good.

So, putting my own list aside, I embraced Yupa's Two-Things-For-The-Day list of the hospital visit followed by the food market.  

We left Hot Springs at 7:30 this morning.  Sky was overcast which helped to keep the temperature down a bit.  Dropped Bao off to school for 8, then headed through 20 minutes of stop and go construction traffic before arriving at the hospital.  Parking lot was full, so we added another 15 minutes by using the off site parking lot complete with over-sized golfing cart to take you to the front door.  Seats 6 but apparently up to 9 people can be accommodated....sort of. 

By the time we got into the building and took our number for the first station - #189 - it was 9 a.m.  And so began the waiting.  First bit we moved through quite quickly.  Yupa first had to register, then wait.  Then have her vitals taken, then wait.  Then have her blood work done, then wait.  After the blood work, she was told it would be two hours before the results would be sent up, and then the doctor would see her.  Bear in mind, this is her regular doctor.  Felt more like a walk in clinic, but no.  She had an appointment and this is how appointments with the doctor go. 

We found a spot (praise God for padded waiting room chairs) in the tight rows of benches, and set about to pass the time. 

Without a doubt, if Yupa and I were both bilingual or at least spoke the same language well, there would be no lack of conversation.  Even as it is, one of the things I enjoyed about today was the chance to just connect with my friend in a very relaxed sort of way.  We practiced English and Thai as we chatted together about the children's school progress (who's doing well and who's not), and about her mother's health (she had a small stroke when we were here last year), and reminisced about their time in Canada in January of this year.  Both Suradet and Yupa always ask about Highview, and specifically about people they now know.   The conversation is slow, as we struggle for words.  But we were waiting, so no hurry.  As we passed the two hour mark, she apologized, and thanked me for coming with her.  I said not to worry.  I was here for three months, so we had lots of time.  This makes us both laugh.

And besides, we only had two things on the list today.  This, and the food market.  Low expectations reduce frustrations, and I had already let go of my own list for the day, so.  Granted, the 'waste' of a perfectly good morning didn't entirely escape my notice.  I kept comparing what had been accomplished so far this day -  like, nothing - with what I might like to accomplish on any given morning at home.  I'm an early riser, and I do my best concentrated work between 7:00 and 10:00 a.m.  Lots can get checked off a list between 7:00 and 10:00 a.m.  But not today.

Approaching the three hour mark lunch was now being threatened.  But Yupa and I had both packed snacks, so we managed.  But - three hours?  This didn't feel like a walk in clinic any more.  It felt more like a trip to emerg.  But this wasn't random walk in accidents and the like.  This was a regularly scheduled appointment.  We were sitting where we could see people go in to sit with the doctor.   I started timing how long it took.  Thirty seconds.  Not a word of a lie.  The average time any one person actually engaged with the doctor was half a minute.  If something was really wrong, then you maybe got a full minute. 

At the four hour limit Yupa got the 30 seconds due her.  Good news is all her blood work came back normal and she was instructed to keep on doing what she's doing.  Yay!  Finally, we can go.  No, actually.  Yupa motioned for me to follow her to one more station where we waited another hour, no I'm not kidding, to pick up her prescriptions.

So now it's 2 o'clock in the afternoon.  I'm tired and I'm hungry.  But it's okay, because the second thing on the list is the food market, which is what I really wanted to do today anyways.  Except Yupa tells me, no, the market would be shutting down by now.  It will have to wait another day. 

Oh.

I am here to learn.  "Morning by morning he awakens me; he awakens my ear to listen as one being taught."  Isaiah 50:4  So, what did I hear today?

That a one-thing-only day is still a good day.  That Canadian health care is pretty amazing.  That some things are better accomplished by abandoning lists and letting life unfold.  That letting go of expectations, and in the company of a beautiful soul, frustration doesn't really even have to be entertained.  That my friend Yupa is enjoying good health and that is a gift worth devoting an entire day to.  That my list is still important, but it wasn't the boss of me today. 

However....I did get to check of "Blog about hospital trip with Yupa".   Sigh.  I'll get there.

My Thai Guy

It took some convincing, I'll admit to that.

With our two sponsored children Thim and Eg.

For the past almost nine years I have come to this place without Ken.  That's 15 times.  Not my choice to leave him behind, but his.  He's been more than wonderful to stay home and support my far off adventures, holding down the fort and offering over and above out of our own resources to make it happen.  In all of that time, he has been completely dedicated to the care of the children that Suradet and Yupa have gathered.  Even when he has been himself inconvenienced, he's never complained.  For all the times I've come without him, he has in so many ways been completely 'with' me in this.

Giving greetings from Highview on Sunday morning.

But at last, at last, he's here in the flesh.  And I admit that it took some convincing.  Strange to think of it now.  All the 'reasons' he had for not coming seem to have dissolved in the mountain morning mist.  Because this guy, it turns out, is so Thai!

He's good at Thai manners, conscientious and holding back, always waiting for the cues, never pushy or too loud.  He slow and clear when speaking English to new English learners.  He smiles a lot, which proves a helpful tool when in 'the land of smiles'.  And he's even trying out new food!  Anyone who knows Ken, knows this is probably the biggest deal of all.  My meat-and-potatoes guy has really pushed past his culinary comfort zone, and all with gentleness and grace and love. 

Decked out in Thai Pants at the King's Garden

He's even looking the part.  Upon arrival we realized that we hadn't really thought of how exactly he'd carry around his epipen (bee sting allergies).  An extra 'manly' Thai bag of mine provided the answer, and to please me mostly, he carries it everywhere.  Then, when visiting the King's gardens yesterday, he was required to rent some Thai pants in order to comply with the dress code (no shorts).   All of a sudden, my 'please-don't-make-me-go-to-Thailand' husband looks like he totally belongs here.

And he's acting it too.  And feeling it.  Feeling it in the deeper places sometimes when, as he described, he suddenly realizes just how happy God must be about all this - this small children being rescued thing, lives transformed thing, love and gentleness being nurtured in this sometimes dark and crazy world of ours thing.

It is hard for me to adequately express just how enormously I am delighting in his presence with me right now.  For one, we're about to experience a three month separation unprecedented in our marriage thus far.  I'm trying not to think about that too much.  Not yet anyways.  We still have three more full days together.  And in each moment, I'm delighting in and enjoying the fact that he's actually here.  He's here!  At Hot Springs!

But as well, there's just this fact that he came, all this way, pressing through his own reservations, just to see what all the fuss was about, and what has captured his wife's heart so thoroughly.

My Thai Guy.  Have I mentioned he's my hero? 

Love you so much, Ken.  Can't thank you enough for all you do to make so much possible.

Silly "Paw Ken"!!!!

Mot Leuri

Day two.  Settling in slowly and just trying to be here 'completely.

Full report this time on Bread and Honey.

I promise some pictures soon.