Rice Grains

Last night I had a delightful evening with my friend Aoo and her family. Well, mostly delightful, that is. In Thai culture, I believe it is quite acceptable for women to hold hands in public simply because they are friends. But it is also quite acceptable in this culture to show affection to people of the same gender for other reasons. So when Aoo met me at Dunkin Donuts to take me to her mother's house, I found it rather difficult to let her hold my hand as we walked quite a distance down the street!

However, once we arrived at her mom's house, all apprehension disappeared. Aoo had told me--so I thought--that she was taking me to meet her sister and her mother. It turned out that Aoo was referring to the sister of her mother. So I ate with Aoo, her mother, her aunt, and her aunt's 16-year-old daughter. Their names are Sawinee, Nit, and Ning.

For the first time since I've been here, I sat on the floor to eat. We ate just inside Sawinee's shop so that she could continue to help customers that came along. Sawinee (Aoo's mother) is a wonderfully sweet lady who knows no English. But we had fun laughing at my poor attempts to make conversation in Thai, and Ning, Aoo's cousin, was excited to learn a few English words.

I will need to find out what I bought from Sawinee last night. As we were sitting around their little table, I saw what I thought were small cans of iced coffee in the frig that also contained quite a bit of alcohol for sale. In fact the only word I could read on the cans was "coffee". So I thought it would be a token of my appreciation if I bought something from the shop. When I asked the price, they immediately mentioned something about beer. I quickly "corrected" them and said, no I wanted the can of coffee.

This morning as I took a few sips, I began to wonder if there might not be something a wee bit stronger than mere coffee. But I am not a connosieur of such beverages, so I still don't know. I do know that there were pictures of two bulls butting heads, and oh yes, one other English word: "strong". So was I drinking strong coffee or strong something else?? For fear of becoming too happy for class in Bangkok, I opted to dispose of the remainder of the can--just in case!:)