Our fun time in Chiang Mai started at the zoo, and it thoroughly exceeded our expectations.

The animals were of course a little more exotic: zebras, rhinos, hippos, giraffes, elephants, lions, tigers, bears. We even saw the only three pandas in Thailand and visited the aquarium that houses the longest underwater tunnel in Asia.

The best part, though?

You can feed so many of the animals that you encounter. They have stations with fruit, vegetables, and meat–whatever diet is appropriate–and you can purchase a basket for somewhere between $.30 and $2.

It was more fun than I could say.

Seriously? He was cute enough to almost convince us to get a pet elephant.

I fed raw beef to a leopard!

The whole place was huge, and we spent seven hours perusing. It wasn’t designed very practically, which I might argue is somewhat common in Thailand, and we walked up some sharp hills and steep, uneven steps for many of these hours, sometimes just to find that there was nothing built at the end.

With such a day full of walking and exercise, we enjoyed a night out: dinner at one of our favorite restaurants in Chiang Mai, complete with a hamburger and fries for Stephen!  We had some Starbucks coffee while we waited for our late showing of Hugo, in theaters here in 3D. It was brilliant, by the way.

And it was a very fun, very deluxe sort of day.

The community garden is primarily overseen by an elderly Karen woman. She lives with her daughter, son-in-law, and grandson; and she’s affectionately called Pi Pi, or grandmother, in Karen.

She knows we have been learning Karen, and often tries to speak to us. Rather than using the basic sentences we may or may not know, she speaks in long monologues that often involve significant arm motions and occasionally even jumping and bouncing. We never understand, partially because of language, and partially because I believe she’s gone quite senile. Even with assistance from a translator, the point is often lost.

For the past week or so, she has been approaching us more regularly. Nearly every day she would track us down and speak to us.

And every time we were very confused and left with smiles, repeating, “I don’t understand.”

On Monday afternoon we were outside the house loading up the truck to go to Chiang Mai. We were about three hours behind schedule and scrambling to get things into place.  I was taking the trash out as one of the last things, while Stephen was coming in from turning off our water.

He warned me, “She’s coming; try not to run into her because we’ve got to go!”

And then after I didn’t come in for ten minutes, he knew I’d been caught and came out to observe.

Our conversation went like this: She gave me a very long spiel–the same from the past few days. The only word I understood was “go”, which is discouraging. I asked her to speak slowly; she repeated the same thing at the same speed. I asked her where she was going, and who, and why; all to which she repeated the same thing in the same manner. I asked to speak to her daughter, who I typically understand better. She repeated the spiel. I asked where her daughter was and explained that might help me understand. She repeated.

I called a friend from work, who happened to be sick that day and still sweetly and graciously offered to help translate over the phone. I handed over the phone, which Pi Pi wasn’t sure how to use, and the speech was repeated yet again.

And when I received the phone back, our friend understood just barely more than I did. It seemed scattered, she said, but something about someone going somewhere.

About this time–when we were three and a half hours behind schedule–the daughter, Mong Ey, showed up. She is more familiar with our Karen level, and she knows to use basic words and speak slowly.

This is more helpful than I could say.

She explained that her mother was leaving tomorrow. She was crossing the border to go back to Burma, eventually traveling to Rangoon. She wouldn’t be back to Mae Sot and wanted to tell us goodbye.

And even better, they saw that we had a truck today, and when we have a truck they know we are leaving for a longer period of time, so she was trying to tell us urgently.

…Lovely.

We said our goodbyes and left, quite late now. And then as we drove away, we had the idea of coming back to take a photo.

We also took a few shots of their family together and said our goodbyes again before heading out, very aware that we wouldn’t be arriving to our destination until around midnight.

Even so, it was really wonderful. For a split second, we could communicate a few small things. And for a split second, we got another glimpse into the community we’re creating here.  We received another reminder to love well and pray more for what God is doing to advance his Kingdom.

We still love our neighbors.

We still go out to play with the kids and love how popular we feel when we drive down the street between two rows of hellos and goodbyes.

But here are a few new developments:

+ While we were out playing Memory yesterday, one of the girls accidentally called Stephen by my name, which suddenly ensued huge bouts of laughter all around. Hilarious–Stephen being Kelli. Nevermind the fact that for the first six months we were here, and last week for that matter, they have called both of us Kelli. Suddenly, they understand our names?!

+ A three year old was eating a cookie with one hand and picking at bird poop with another. He didn’t seem to know what it was and was just pointing at it for Stephen. With utmost maturity, Stephen then proceeded to let him know it was bird poop by: motioning for a bird (hands as wings, saying “tweet tweet”) and then motioning for poop, including a hand motion in the vicinity of his rear and a fart sound. The little boy got it, and among the older boys around, he quickly became a hero.

And to make it better, when another little boy walked up later, the story was repeated. We could of  course tell this by the similar, oh-so-classy hand motions and sound effects.

+ On a better note–our garden is working! There are a couple women who come regularly in the mornings to work in the garden; they are watering constantly in this dry season. And things are growing!  Just before we left for the last team, an older woman came over to pick up five snake gourds and two pumpkins. As she was leaving, she handed us two of the gourds and took the rest back for dinner!  We tried to actually give her these back, too, but she insisted. Either way, there were vegetables and we were sharing them communally. Sounds like success to me.

Yesterday, too, another woman came over before dinner and grabbed a few pieces of lemongrass for her dish. We love it.

+ They’re still adorable, too, and obviously learning good things from us!

Stephen took so many photos while we were home for Christmas, and they’ve been our screen saver since we returned home. They fall across the screen, distracting me from the conversation I’m in the middle of.

My favorites often surprise me. They aren’t the posed ones, perfect for frames, where we all look oh-so-good. Instead, I like the blurry ones where someone was moving too quickly to capture them. I like the ones where the focus is on the “wrong” thing, forcing you see things from a different perspective.  I like the ones where one person is the center of the photo, but the person in the background has the hilarious facial expression.

This is probably my favorite of them all.

It captures the conversation, the warm clothes, the family being together; it captures her amazing facial expressions. This one photo takes me back to her house and our chatting while she puts up laundry; to these same facial expressions being made over loading the dishwasher or making muffins.

I was so excited to see this girl; I was so excited for these conversations. I actually–and quite foolishly–thought that having the time with her over Christmas would fill that void. We had many conversations, shared quite a few laughs, and even squeezed in a few runs.

But instead of being filled up, I want so many more.

We found him on our floor this morning. Cute.