By that I mean, it's next to impossible to convince Yupa that we should help do our own laundry. For a gentle Thai lady, she can be so stubborn about this! It's all part of the culture of service and honour and love, and an erasing of the lines between helper and helped.
The other day, though, I saw a golden opportunity and, when I thought no one was looking, I snuck out to the bamboo pole on which the last load of Highview Team's laundry was drying, and started to bring it in. This was the underwear load. Sorry if that's TMI but it's important to the story.
Also important to know is the fact that we are quite aware of the extra domestics required when we're here. We've been a team of five (now four with Sheldon's earlier departure) and you can just imagine if five people came and stayed at your house for two weeks. So we do our best to politely work around Thai culture to help lighten the load by clearing our own table, being conscientious about our garbage and recycling, and sneaking out to bring in the laundry when we think we can get away with it.
But no.
Wara intercepted me.
Wara is one of the older girls who help out with the domestics when we have a Team stay. She saw me taking in the laundry and hurried over with a cry of dismay. Oh Ahjahn Ruth, mai chai (no)! But I insisted, thanking her just the same.
Then she asked, "Don't you want me to iron those?" I paused, confused. Looking down at the collection of briefs belonging to four different women, I wondered if I had actually heard her correctly. Iron our underwear? But she held her hand on an imaginary iron and swiped it back and forth in an ironing motion.
And then a dawning.
They iron our underwear?!!
I had known that he took a quick iron to any of our cotton shirts and sometimes our pants if things came out of the machine a little bedragggled. There's no dryer here to set to "permanent press" and often as not, no breeze to help blow out the wrinkles. It's not necessary, as far as I'm concerned, and it's always been done 'in secret' so to speak, so I haven't really been able to stop them from doing it. But I did know about it. But.....underwear?
I'm dismayed. Truly. I tell Wara, no! Please don't iron our underwear! She smiles broadly, bends low and wraps her arms around my waist (a way of showing gratitude and honour to someone older) and says repeatedly in English, "Oh thank you, thank you." She's so happy she has been released from some of her task.
I come in to distribute our underthings and report my discovery to the Team. They iron our underwear!!!
The very next moment I see Yupa I express my concern. There's already so much you do for us.
Please, don't iron our underwear. It's totally not necessary!
It was Yupa's turn to look confused. "No-o", she says, in her elongated way. No underwear gets pressed around here.
Oh. So? What is Wara talking about?
Then it dawns on us both. She's playing a trick on Ahjahn Ruth! Yanking my chain! Yes, that sweet little Wara is playing with me. And I totally bought it. We laugh so hard we almost need to do an underwear load again. Who irons underwear? Come on!
The thing is, it could have been true.
So that's one thing about this story.
The bazillion ways we are loved here is a very powerful thing. Much more than a laundry thing. It's totally a love thing. And so many of us, having stayed with this family, go home realizing we've been loved at a molecular level, at a practical level, at an 'everything level', in ways we can hardly explain when we try. Like ironed underwear.
And like play. Which is the other thing.
Because the truth is I'm not that much fun, just me. And mostly I'm okay with this, but God knows I need happy, playful people in my life. So He sent me a whole extra family that includes Wara who makes me imagine a hilarious picture involving underwear and an ironing board. And who's humour and joy is a testimony to the life she's now living. And somehow, somehow -- and this is such a mystery to me -- I get to be part of this.
Tomorrow we get on the plane and come back to Canada. All our underwear is packed and ready to go. But our hearts, not so much. Can two weeks really go by this fast? Yup.
Personally, I'm encouraged by the fact that I'll be here again in just six weeks. Shortest turn around ever (and I thought two months was quick last time!). So I'm already preparing for that visit, with Ken and our long time friends Bill and Celine. Already thinking about being here again.
Maybe they'll let me help with the laundry eventually.
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