Wednesday, November 5, 2008

I have never drank a gin and tonic so fast


Khun Oy (Khun Iad's neice) and Khun Tuah said they would pick me up at 6 pm for dinner. I am out of the shower around 2 and the phone rings. "I pick you at 3." okay, I can get ready in an hour no problem. I make myself a cocktail. I little too early, but girls gotta take the edge off!

They arrive twenty minutes later, two tiny Thai girls dressed in business-like attire... I toss some make up on and the rest of my drink down my throat and off we go! We stumble through greetings and first words, sounding like two year olds I imagine. They ask what I would like to do. I don't know, and I actually don't care, "anything." So they talk and agree on- what does every girl love to do?... "Chawp mai ka Shopping?!" How do I say no? "Chawp-ka!" And off we go, to the one place in downtown have already been!

Whatever, I can shop again. I love doing something out of the compound and it's fun to try to talk to these girls. Khun Tuay can speak a bit of English. We go get a snack and shop around then Khun Tuay has to go. We drive her to her tiny downtown condo and stay for awhile watching the news and talking about Barack, their King, work, and families and then we leave. At this point we have already had a three hour date so I imagined it was time to drop this old bag off, but we were going now to meet Khun Tip for dinner. This ride to dinner was the most entertaining.

Khun Oy speaks as much English as I do Thai. We are driving in an extremely over air conditioned car which is totally tricked out with Hello Kitty gear and listening to horrible American pop song remixes (I imagine for my sake.) So we are trying to talk, well just trying to teach each other words so I say, "sii...left, kwaa... right" "sii... left, kwaa... light" "right" "light" "rrrrright" "llllight".... okay so I start showing her lights and say "light" and with my hand I show "right." Then I try another word with the "R" in it. "Right" like "rice." "Lice"
Now I am laughing and so she is laughing (lots of laughing on this date, usually one was laughing because something was fun and the other was laughing because what the hell else are you going to do with yourself!)
"R's" are hard so I decided no more "R's" tonight! I guess I should have known that when the English speaking Tuah said "do you like ealaley" and was talking about Hilary Clinton! She brought it on herself though when she said "Thai baht, US dollars, India...?" "Rupies." "Ahhh, luupies." I was dying inside!
Sometimes I thought I was learning the Thai word for something... "singer song... ka wa kee" I would repeat "ka wa kee several times to try to remember it for later before I realized that she was trying to say karaoke and not actually teach me a Thai word!

Dinner with Khun Tip was excellent. The octopus tasted like rubber bands in my mouth but I took it down! We all had a Kamkazie with dinner and once I itched my eye Khun Oy says, "you sleepy, too much drink!" Ahhh... how do I tell this 4' 10" 80 pounder that rarely drinks that a kamakazie is not going to faze this beast of an American? "no, I am okay"

Khun Tip could speak a little English so she would translate. Now I am roped in to a series of engagements. "Chawp mai ka dancing at disco tec?" oh god please no "maybe."
I think I am going to a few traditional ceremonies this week too "we call to confirm" they tell me. I am nervous about my casual cotton dresses for these events but we will see...

Oh. and the earrings Khun Tuah gave me as souvenir! Heavy as hell and sparkle like a disco ball! Over all, 7 hours of pure entertainment. These girls were so nice to take me out, and they were so cute- grabbing on to me at the mall and telling me to always ask for a discount, which I already forgot how to say! We all liked each other very much and I made my first friends!
what a night!

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