More Goodbyes

Here is Bun Young. Bun Young recently returned from Thailand and brought us each the yellow jackets shown in an earlier post. Bun Young has given us a note to show in case we have any difficulties in the province of Issan. He is fairly well known at the various Wats in the area. We call it our special "Bun Young Passport". All of the monks have been so very kind to us in the past few months. We will sorely miss them all!

Can you tell that it is cold in the South today? The Abbot is pictured here in the kitchen wearing his cold weather gear. We have learned many things about living in the Thai community from the Abbot. His patience with us has been wonderful! We feel quite inept when we try and speak Thai but all at the Wat do their best to understand us and not laugh toooooo much. It has been fun.

This is Nit. Today she was one of the ladies at the Wat who came to prepare a wonderful lunch for the monks. John and I contributed green and purple grapes. We figured that we couldn't go wrong with fruit. But by the time we return we hope to be able to prepare many tasty Thai dishes.

Kim was there too. You should be able to tell from her photo that she is the life of the party! As with other members of the Thai community Kim was eager to help us learn new phrases. These new phrases will be very helpful as we become acclimated to the spicy foods we will find in our new home. "Not too hot" is said phonetically as -- nit noi pet pet. If you prefer to have the spices brought to the table and put them on yourself you say -- mai pet. I am going to practice both!

This is Chob. Chob is Nit's niece. She also helped making lunch. We all pitched in to take the food to the table. When approaching the table I crouch down just a little. To put a plate for the monks to eat they place a piece of cloth down and we put the bowl/plate on the cloth. Ladies never touch a monk but John was able to shake hands with Bun Young. I was able to do a "wai" with my hands and say -- Na masa gan la kah. We learned that this is a special way to say goodbye to a monk.

I don't think I will spell this dear lady's name correctly but she said her name is Tv. She told us to remember her whenever we turn on our TV. She also made some dishes at home and brought them to add to the monks lunch. TV spent some time translating words for Bun Young when he came to speak with us. He can read, write and understand English but is not comfortable speaking. So in addition to our "passport" he also wrote in English "Good luck every day in Thailand." He has promised to come and visit us. We look forward to that and hope by the time any of our US Thai friends come to say Hi we will be able to respond in Thai.