“Maa Cak Mahaasamut…”

Every day in Thai class we learn some new vocabulary words, and then some new sentence structures to go with our new words. We read example sentences (currently in a phonetic alphabet using the Roman letters and sounds we already know) and then try to form sentences using new words and patterns. Sometimes this can lead funny places. Last_Thursday Iven used the model, “phanraya ben khon thay” (my wife is a thai person) to say, “phanraya ben khon thalay” (my wife is a_sea(food) person). This put a quizzical look on our Thai teacher’s face, and made me start laughing at_Iven’s creativity. Thus we found ourselves attempting to utilize our bits and pieces of Thai language to explain what he meant. My parents met when they were both living on boats. I was born on a houseboat and grew up on a fishing boat (which is still my dad’s livelihood). Virtually every bread winner (fish catcher?) in the history of my dad’s family has been a fisherman. This picture I drew of my dad’s boat made us all laugh, even if it didn’t do much to clear up our jumbled Thai storytelling. As a finale to our explanation of the seemingly silly statement that Iven’s wife is from the sea, we explained to the teacher that my middle name, Marina, also means “from the ocean” – which we learned translates as_”maa cak mahaasamut”._Isn’t that fun to say? Just another adventure in Thai_class! _