Dinner Party

Two nights ago I was invited over to the home of Tuk and her 6 roommates for dinner. I’m going to have trouble remembering all their names. I know I met an Oyi, an Ohn, and an Oha. I think I was the only straight person there. Tuk works at SDF. Her friend, Grib, is my contact person with AJWS, the US-based organization that placed me in Thailand. Grib is butch and drives a big truck and uses a set of dentures as her key chain. Tuk looks way younger then her 35 years and is super sweet. I like them. Thais are very accepting of all sexualities. Last Saturday they took me to the mall so I could buy a phone and sheets. I watched how Thais politely discuss which brand of toilet paper to buy and share a papaya salad by separating out their favorite veggies. Grib has been doing a lot of translating for me as I get to know what it is the SDF does and needs help with. After the mall we went to Tuk's house for coffee. I met some of Tuk's roommates. They have a great porch and an outdoor kitchen that is set back in the jungle. And they have about 7 dogs. 6 of them are great but one doesn’t like phalang (white people) and he always barks at me aggressively. I was told that I am welcome to come over anytime for breakfast, a regular group event. They asked if I knew how to cook and I said, “Yes.” So now they are planning a night of Italian food and there is talk of Chinese and Japanese nights as well. It’s nice to have a community to belong to. Tuk has designed a house that is about 1 month away from being complete. She is using gorgeous recycled teak wood for the doors and windows. The dining room has a huge vaulted ceiling and the master bedroom has a lovely balcony. The tile in the kitchen and bathrooms is beautiful and the best part is that her new house will connect with the great porch of the house she currently lives in. It will be like a fabulous compound of gays and lesbians working for NGOs and arts organizations. The other American here, a journalist named Lisa, works at an NGO across from mine. Lisa has a theory about Thais who work at NGOs being slightly outside of the ‘norm.’ You can read her article on her trip to a Keren village, the one I’ve now been to twice, here.

So at dinner the food was excellent. It reminded me of taco night. It was a dish from Southern Thailand, lots of little bowls of various ingredients that you assemble based on your taste. But instead of tortillas the base is rice. We had fresh lemongrass and there was pomelo, my favorite citrus fruit, and some stuff I had never seen before, like a radish-like pink flower. Desert was papaya and guava and beer and plum wine. So after all the food was gone we sat around for quite some time talking about food and drink and who likes the morning and who like to party. And I looked around at everyone and had myself a nice moment. I had new friends.