Times in Thailand

Well, I knew this would happen, life would get busy and my posts would slow way down. When I finally have the time to set down and write you all it's hard to choose what story to tell you next. We still don't have our sea shipment, thus no furniture. (We've been assured-Monday and Tuesday for sure as our shipment has now cleared customs!) Tile is really hard! especially when you have to set on it for meals if it is raining outside, which it does a lot of late. This is the official rainy season and almost everyday it does just that-rains. Most of the time it's just a spattering of rain and we go on about our business but as we've gone along in the season we are seeing more lightening, thundering and rainstorms. It is quite spectacular in our family room because it has a glass ceiling. Getting back to the hard floors, most Thai people have incredibly flat feet, I assume from walking on tile and concrete their entire life barefoot. They remove their shoes when they enter a house and otherwise they usually wear flat, rubber, flip-flops. Their feet are really spread out, I wonder how hard it would be for my Dad to fit them in a pair of boots?

Every time I'm riding alone with Songkran we try to converse some and he is very gracious to help me with my Thai, or maybe he's just entertained, he laughs a lot at my pronunciation. I'm so glad that so many Thai people find my language ability so entertaining!!! Anyway, I just think it is amazing how different our languages are and how confusing it must be when he hears us talking English. For instance, their word for 5 is ha. I have a funny Thai friend, Khun Lek, and when she emails she always puts 5555, hahahaha. Speaking of Khun Lek here's a funny story about language barriers. I was at the boys school one morning and I saw Khun Lek setting with a table of Thai ladies, she is the only one that speaks English. I approach the table to say hello to my friend and right away a lady jumps up to give me her seat.I motion to her to please keep her seat but she insists and as she is getting up she says something in Thai that causes a little laugh around the table. I jokingly ask, "Okay, did she just say I hope her big, American, bottom fits?" Khun Lek shockingly remarks, "You speak Thai?" Well, again I'm amusing my new Thai friends!

Okay, here's some of the words that I've learned that make me laugh.
My poo-a is men!! My husband is stinky!! I always knew Mark was a poo-a! and I'm his mee-a.
I love my food pet-or spicy but I don't usually eat my pets.
A cow is a woo-u, a pig a moo,a goat is called pa in Thai
but of course! It does seem to make some sense that a cat would be called a meow-ee though and a chicken a guy if an egg is a kuy
We are having lots of fun lately, or rain.
We want a ma or a dog and ironically we have already had someone ask us for a dog or loan for 80,000Baht. I've just purchased some dog-my for my pool area and they look beautiful.
We love all the fresh supaloet or pineapple and have discovered a new fruit-shampoo that tastes a little like an apple and not at all like a hair product.
Our house is our bon or home.
It's difficult but My-pen-lie-no worries!

We had a little bit of stress with the whole dog(or loan) business. On Wednesday my friend Nong came to the door looking very, very distressed. Remember, she speaks NO English, well that's really not true she did say, "Money" and was motioning to her throat like she was slashing it. I could tell after two minutes that we were getting no where fast and called Noik, her sister and my housekeeper to please come over and translate. I really couldn't tell if Nong was sick and needed surgery or if she was in a bind thus the slashing the throat motion. Noik arrived shortly on her motorbike and tried to translate the whole sorted details. It was a terrible position to be placed in, my first Thai friend already asking me for money not for food or surgery. Apparently, she co-signed a loan for a friend to help start a machine shop. The business failed, the friend has 'relocated'and now loan-sharks are threatening to kill Nong if she doesn't come up with 80,000Baht ($2400 US). To complicate things she never told her poo-a any of this. She asked for a dog rather than a gift because in January she has sold some land and the second installment will be made on it and she will be able to repay us then? And, we
can not mention this to her husband as he will beat her severely. Oh no, what a quandary. I tell her right away that it is never a good thing to keep such big secrets from the poo-a and that I will have to talk to my poo-a and would she please return Thursday morning. Let's just say at our house the mee-a and the poo-a balance each other out! Of course I'm feeling like we need to help her right away and Mark is very leery of the whole situation but of course he doesn't know Nong and hadn't heard or seen her distress. At the men's Bible study that evening he mentioned it as a prayer request and Daniel, our pastor really advised us to be so careful in this situation. He has lived here 13 years and speaks Thai fluently. We asked he and his wife to come on Thursday morning and translate as we needed more details. I was so grateful for their help. They expressed that we did not want to get into the middle of any Thai, sticky, shady business deals or between her husband and her. They also explained that she had placed us in a very awkward position in just two weeks of living in our bon in Thailand. After a lengthy back and forth discussion in English, Thai and Africanese (Daniel and Marina's language) we finally came to this decision. Khun Mark and I would discuss and pray about this situation now that we have all the details then if we decided to help we would give Noik a gift and she could decide how she would like to use it, therefore far removing us from the whole, shady affair. We suggested that she offer the loan shark a smaller amount of money and give him copy of land sale agreement perhaps even in presence of police with guarantee to pay the full amount in January when she receives her money. She adamantly refuses to get the police involved. It's a position we didn't want to find ourselves in so quickly. There is a saying in Thailand among the farangs to not loan money to anyone telling you the sad story that their water buffalo died and they have no way to plow their fields... so we knew this would happen sooner or later but this soon? I hope this story is all on the up and up but realize that any money we give to help should never be expected to be seen again. We struggle with the way Jesus shows us to live-when they ask for your shirt give them your coat too...It seems so unjust, we are billionaires in their eyes, we are compared to them. How does all this foreign money really affect their economy and culture and change the whole dynamics of their society? Pray for us as we discern who and when we should help here. Pray that we can be a light on the hill. Pray that the loan sharks hearts will be softened toward Nong and give her time to pay her debt.

La-gone for now