Crisis of Communication: Pi Aoy

One of the most endearing but equally as frustrating factors of being a foreigner in Thailand is my inability to communicate. I've learned some key words and phrases, like the names of food and words to direct a taxi driver, but other than that, I stare as blankly to most Thais as many of my students do to me.

Pi Aoy is the lunch lady and she has become quite fond of Linnea and me. She speaks minimal English but that doesn't hold her back from attempting to talk to us. She's a very vivacious and expressive 30-something who wears her poorly dyed hair in scrunchies and frequents how "chuh-beeeee" she is while slamming her palms onto her belly fat (to which we respond, "Whatttt?! Noooo.") and points to Linnea that she is "skih-neeee!" (to me she says nothing. haha.).

What gets frustrating is that we can't understand 98% of what she's saying because she keeps talking in Thai despite our silences and raised eyebrows. The remaining 2% is her English, but oftentimes it takes us about two minutes to comprehend a word because the accent is way off (i.e. the movie "Avatar" = "Aaah-wahhh-taahhh". Imagine how difficult it was to understand.) And then she looks at us, expecting an answer, and when we are like "Sorry! Um..mai kao jai, I don't understand! No understand!", she jokingly scowls at us.

With that said, it's pretty amazing that Linnea and I have been able to hang out with Pi Aoy and her friend, Pi Pen, twice for dinner. Pi Pen speaks about five words in English. Our meals are hilarious because they speak rapidly in Thai; we speak hesitantly and slowly. It's an expressive meal, too. Linnea and I flail our arms about and our faces are hilariously expressive. The four of us usually end up "talking" about the food they've ordered for us (Translation: we point to a dish. They say the name. We nod and go "ohhhh!" and attempt to pronounce it. They laugh at us. We laugh. Repeat X4 because they order a ton of food for us.)

Usually when Pi Aoy (right, above) says something to us, Linnea and I nod our heads as if we understand, then turn to each other and mutter, "Did you catch any of that?" "Nope." We joke now that having a conversation with Pi Aoy is one of the most exhausting parts of our day, but she has been one the friendliest staff members at Amnuayvidhya to us. She constantly showers us with gifts and is never afraid to get chatty!

In a way, it's good to have a friendly Thai speak to us in her native tongue as we do to our students. It puts us in our students' shoes and reminds us to speak clearly and use other means of communication to convey a point, because the most simple message could easily get lost in translation with this immense language barrier.

I will own at charades by the time I get back home.