I have diarrhea..

Before you judge me for sharing too much information about my bowel habits, no, I do  not in fact have diarrhea, and even if I did, as much as I tell you lovely folks, that would not be something that I would share! No, no, and NO! I am a lady after all. So, no, that is not what this post is about. This post is about my new maid who we shall call Khun Number Four & Final. I have to call her that because we are leaving Thailand soon and there is no way that I will be hiring yet another maid.

So, a little back story; this maid is number four. Maid number one left me to open a bakery and her English was very broken, but we could communicate very well and she set the gold standard for maids. Maid number two it took 15 minutes and two Thai/English translators to fire her (in case you missed it, she spoke NO English). Maid number three took nine, yes NINE, paid vacation days before quitting, bad mouthing me to other Expats, and then begged for her job back. She spoke great English, and what she lacked in cleaning skills she made up for with helping with the kiddos when I went grocery shopping. But again, she took nine paid vacation days and she was only with me for about 8 weeks.

Which brings us to maid number four, Khun Number Four & Final ( Khun NFF, for short). Khun NFF and I came into contact due to a very dear friend, the sassy and awesome Mrs. S, and her former maid (who shall remain nameless due to our current feelings toward her). Khun Nameless brought Khun NFF over to my house one fine Saturday morning and it was very apparent, very quickly I might add, why she brought this woman over verses just referring her. Apparently Khun NFF does not speak a lick of English. In the past this would have bothered me (especially in light of maid 2), but I gave up on the whole English speaking thing and decided to hire Khun NFF. Besides, having a maid makes me look like a really awesome wife and like I have my shit together, and really, who wouldn't want to prolong that imagine when you can ;-)

Khun NFF and I had the typical growing pains associate with her being new in my home and dealing with things the way I wanted. Other then that, in my opinion, I thought things were going very well. Every now and then I would ask our driver if she were happy, and he always said yes. I was very pleased with this because she liked me. He said that. He said she liked me. She really liked me!! Yes, finally someone who may stay and not take a bazillion vacation days, because she likes me!!! I know that sounds pathetic, really I do, but after losing three other maids and going through what we did to get our fantastic driver, a girl tends to develop a complex.

And then one day it happened. I asked the question and he says "yes madam, she happy. You very easy take care of, but...". Oh, the but. How did I know that he would eventually through out "but".  Insert complex here! Oh man. She does not like me. She does not like me at all!! Why??? What did I do?? Why doesn't she like me?? Again, yes pathetic I know, but I couldn't help thinking those thoughts. However, the "but" wasn't as bad as I feared. It wasn't bad at all, really. In fact, the "but" was actually quite heartwarming, if you will. She wasn't happy because she couldn't talk to me. She wanted to learn English to talk to ME!!! Bye, bye complex, and hello pathetic girl who is happy that her maid likes her!

My driver however was not pleased with her declaration that she wanted to go to school and promptly told her that she was too old. Poor guy. He really does not know how to talk to women. Like at all. I remember showing him a dress that I got from the dress shop one day, and maid number three proclaimed that he should buy one for his wife and he said "Oh no. She too fat. She very, very big!" (insert very big hand gestures, here). He told her that she should just try talking to me instead. Okay, I can work with that. However, once I took it upon myself to engage her more, it quickly became apparent that not only did she not speak English, she doesn't all that much understand it either. Charades was getting us nowhere. And I do mean nowhere. I happen to think that I'm pretty good at that game now, but not with Khun NFF.

Eventually though, I did notice that she was coming in with more English words. She actually sang to the kids one day the ABC's. Hmm, this got me thinking that maybe just being around us was helping her. She would come in and say "good morning", she would call the kids by their names, she still said "I come back, go home" when it was quitting time, but I really thought that she was doing a good job with the few words that it seemed she picked up from us. We still had to call the driver when we need significant information exchanged, but charades was getting easier, so I figured we were on the right track to teaching Khun NFF English.

I realized yesterday that I was very wrong about us, the kids and I that is, being the source of her new found English skills. Around 4:15, when I knew that she was done for the day and was just hanging around until quitting time, I walked into her room and told her that she could come back go home. That is when I noticed that she was reading a book. So, I asked her what she was reading. She promptly walked over with a big smile on her face and showed me the book. It was a copy of a Thai to English book. She had/has been reading this book and learning English all along, because again, she likes me and wants to talk to me. This is however where the story takes a very funny "I have diarrhea" turn.

The first sentence that I see when she hands me the book was a translation for "I have diarrhea". Now, why in the whole big wide world would a Thai person need to know the translation for that sentence?? I can understand a farang like myself needing to know how to say that in Thai, (especially given the state of some of the restaurants around here and given the multitude of street vendors) but a Thai person needing to know how to say that in English just blows my mind. I mean seriously, if a Thai person needs to go to the Dr. for diarrhea, chances are that they can communicate this perfectly fine in Thai.  Out of all the key phrases a Thai person should know in English, that ain't one of them!!

Being that I really like this woman and want her to have a good job before I leave, and knowing that "I have diarrhea" should not be the first full English sentence that Khun NFF says, especially to a prospective new employer, I told her to stay put and ran inside to find my extra copy of my language book from my Thai lessons. I mean seriously, I could not let this woman leave my house knowing how to say THAT perfectly and still proclaiming "I come back, go home" as her goodbye for the day.

After skimming the book for a few seconds, I was rewarded with another big ol' Thai smile and one very big "thank you" (well, lots of thanks. She was very happy).  Given her work ethic I am very hopeful, and almost certain,  that when she gets her next job she will have a better understanding of English and be able to speak it (you know, minus the whole diarrhea part) very well.  She is a great maid, a hard worker, and a really nice person.

Kristen