Ratchada 42

An evening at Ratchada 42

Aey’s home, my retreat

The task at hand is dinner. Aey and I head towards her black Toyota Camry, I walk a little further down the driveway to pull back the iron wrought gate… I leave it open because the little market is just right down the street.

We arrive to get the essentials – chicken, squid, peppers, spices, tomatoes, and vanilla ice-cream (my doing of course).

We exit the car and are greeted with the laughter of the neighborhood kids gathered around the market, soccer balls in tow. I feel myself the subject of curious, timid glances; I smile back because they are not the unrelenting, impertinent gazes I am usually on the receiving end of here in Bangkok – they smile back…and scatter.

Purchases in hand, we head back to the car and back to Aey’s family home – a quiet, unassuming house draped in foliage in the midst of the cold concrete of Bangkok. We head to the kitchen. The sun hangs midway on the horizon, leaving the kitchen caught between the heavy humidity of the day and the ever-so-slight cool of the evening. My job is to wash the vegetables. I sheepishly admit to Aey that I don’t do much cooking, nor am I good at it even when I try. She holds back her laughter when I ask if I am to peel the lettuce as I try to wash it. She channels my mother when she asks me what I will do when I have a husband. Her giggles give way to a loud guffaw when I send back my now well-memorized reply,

“He will have to cook for me.”

Aside from this exchange, much of the time is spent in silence. I am concentrating as much as is humanly possible on my vegetables while Aey works her quiet magic on the chicken. Pleasant minutes pass and Aey’s friend Cam enters into the kitchen. The vegetables eventually pass Aey’s scrutiny and I am reassigned to the task of grinding the pepper seeds and garlic… with a mortar and pistle. My station overlooks the backyard and the sound of the pistle cracking against the seeds harkens back to my few kept memories of Nigeria. The sun is almost gone now and we are rewarded with a cool breeze that flows through the open windows.

The calm is broken when Cam enters into a barrage of Thai and Aey, in response, has almost doubled up in laughter. “Your butt dances while you grind the pepper” Aey manages to get out (in Thai-lish – the hybrid language that we usually engage in amongst ourselves). Cam joins in when I respond “There’s not much that I’m doing that my butt doesn’t dance to…” The silence is permanently severed but is replaced by quick whispers and cheek-spliting references to events from the night before. Cam is piling up dishes and silverware, Aey taste-tests each of her quickly prepared delicious dishes, and I have my hands wrapped around my ice-cream cone – a reward for a job well done.

With darkness to our backs, the beckoning voice of Damien Rice lulls our company into the dining room. We set our creations on the table and glance back and forth towards one another, thankful. As we each take our seats, before I set my mind and mouth on the first of many dishes, I think out a quick make-shift prayer – I pray for you my friends, my family, my loved-ones. I pray that I am on your heart as much as you are on mine, and I hope that God is so graciously blessing your lives as he does mine…everyday…as I am so blessed and lucky for the people He so wonderfully brings into my life. I pray for you, I miss you.

Amen.