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Published: April 30th 2008
The arrivals lounge at Vancouver International is a place where you can almost forget that you are in Canada...the blend of cultures and languages always stuns me. It was kind of neat to be reminded just at that point of the challenges that were ahead with translation and that wonderful "Thai-glish" that Kwang and I speak! The arrivals lounge was a useful buffer...I sat for a while soaking it all in...
Nam and Kwang's flight landed 10 minutes late and as I chatted with a young man perched akwardly on the stairwell as I was (to avoid the mass exodus of arrivals) I realized how much of a first step this was.
I was also frantically practicing any and every Thai phrase I could remember! But this really is a first step...there is so much that we can hopefully make of this, I really got antsy after that. When i feel on the verge of something happening, its like the shockwaves need to go somewhere. As it ended up I had to simmer with taht energy for a further two more hours before I finally managed to see Nam and Kwang. The came through the doors during a light
...in Canada!
bad shot taken with my cellphone...sorry for the quality!break in the flood. For a moment they were the only ones coming down the hall.....Kwang and I saw each other at the same moment and with big grins, literally ran towards each other...I know I know...how geeky is that...but we did.
It was only strange to see my friend and beautiful Nam in warm winter clothes for a split second. Kwang has such a hip sense of fashion anyway, it was awesome and totally cool to see her in a wool hat!
Both were exhausted but happy to be there. It took us another three hours to make it home with the ferry crossing, but we did. Nam was super alert and looking at everything...she is such a cool kid. The ferry line up was pretty sparse at 10:30 at night and as I had Noah (the bullmastiff puppy) with me we walked up and down the lines for a bit. Its funny to experience things through the eyes of peole who haven't seen it before. Besides commenting ont he size of the vehicles...lack of motorbikes, and general distance from anything to anything, Kwang mentioned the amount of pet dogs. I suppose i never realized it before too much, but there was a large dog in about every second or third car. One lovely woman saw Noah and came out with her yellow lab to play. I keep forgetting the way we treat animals here is so different from the rogue village mongrels in Phru Teow and everywhere in Thailand. It must have been weird ot see all these white people with trained beasts trailing them everywhere....
The ferry itself was a pretty neat too. A giant boat you drive onto!? And finally making it up to the passanger deck set off lots of ooohs and ahhs. Those ferries do kinda look cool. We had something to eat (my biggest worry about hosting my friends...what to feed them!) and it was a huge releif to see Nam pack away french fries with as much gusto as Miles on any day!
There was a woman on the ferry who kept glancing at me and finally came over and said hello. Apparently she recognized my face from the news story and wanted to introduce herself and meet Nam. It was really uplifting to have her come by like that and at various other points in the journey, she returned to chat with us about the orphanage and what it was like. It was exactly what I had hoped for from the press coverage...an opportunity to share the story of the orphanage and raise awareness.
Nam finally fell asleep curled up on the ferry seats bundled in the big blankets I brought along. Her only coherent comment after midnight was ..."oooh, nouw"...which is basically..."brrrrrrr".
When we made it home after 1:30 am, everyone sort of crashed. They are still asleep now (at noon Sunday) and if it wasn't for my mutt, I would have been too!
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Mom
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So cool. I've been waiting to hear all the details of what a culture shock it must have been for Kwang and Nam. I can't wait to meet them.