Fun with Thai and more

I know it's really good to keep your brain active as you get older... he, he to stave off mental disorders... hmmm might be too late for that. Anyhow this is how I'm approaching learning Thai, as a preventative measure to Alzheimers. Although I forget everything five minutes after I learn it, so it may actually be contributing to memory loss more than not... The book I have is really great it teaches me all kinds of interesting and useful phrases like: the tiger is on the mat, the shirt is on the tiger and new wood doesn't burn, does it? These are really helpful in day to day life and come up frequently in conversation. As you can see in this picture of paradise the Tiger is on the mat. Really it's just to learn the different tones sounds, since the same word means different things in different tones. This can be problematic, when you call someone a horse... say you've come to declare the good rice... request a bowl of bear rather than noodles... calling someone's grandfather a crab... the possibilities are endless.

We always present ourselves as Jehovah's Witnesses and then give our address, because no one has heard of us. This sounds like: Rao ben payan pra Yahowa. Rao maa jaak phet kaseem soi sip hok. Depending on what tone you use with maa jaak it should be "come from" but I have probably said: from horse, come sewing machine and so many other lovely possibilities. No wonder they are looking at me so weird. Then there's the problem with keeping all the sentences straight. Anybody there? Hello, how are you? We are JW. We are from Phet Kaseem Soi 16... Would you like to read it? The other day I was so tired and it was just me and two Thai sisters who adopted me. They quizzed me on reading, comprehension and grammar. After 2 hours my brain was inside out and I was going to the gate yelling: would you like to read it? I got some funny looks from my service partner, but thankfully there was a lady we couldn't see and I had a Truth tract in my hand so she didn't take it too amiss :) But I came home feeling really positive and grateful that these sisters had helped me so much. A couple days before that Christina was in the ministry and said a sister could be a brother's grandmother and asked young sister if another sister was her horse. Everyone started chuckling. Then I was practicing answers in the territory and they kept saying the tone and I'd repeat it and they all laughed and try again. Then after I answered at the meeting I looked over at the sister and she burst out laughing... Last week in the ministry I asked where I could catch a songteo, basically looks like a tap tap on the bed of a pick up truck. But what I asked for was the somtum, which is a spicy green papaya salad... Everyone sort of starred at me confused and then when I explained they had a good laugh. We are keeping our brothers and sisters entertained. Here we are preaching on the songteo.

 We are also greatly entertained by the interesting English translations we've come across. LOL

We have had some amazing experiences here. The night before we left for Malaysia a sister gave us a little fridge. So we headed across the city to pick it up. I had been brainstorming ways we could move things and felt a Tuk Tuk would be both economical and adventurous :)  We ended up strapping our turquoise "chip and dale" motif fridge to the back of a Tuk Tuk (you know us... ever the trend setters:)
We careened through Khaosan Rd. a popular backpackers street market and a tourist grabbed his camera and snapped pictures of us moving a fridge on a Tuk Tuk. Guess we've gone local. We made it home safe and sound after a few close calls. Then the three of us and two neighbors carried it up to our thrid floor room. When we got back from Malaysia Christina scrubbed it all up and got it spic and span. So now we have a fridge!!