And that is where I started thinking I have to remember this conversation to blog when I get home because this one I can type. Typing what I hear come out of my cambodian sisters mouth is sometimes a tall order. You figure out how to type an american word that was hammered by her sweet cambodian mouth...it ain't easy! But this one...now this one I can type.
We were driving to the surgeon for a 6 week follow up with my shoulder...My doc. adores Victoria and so I thought it would be fun to go together. On the way, we were talking about stuff and she began to say how we just need to have "face" to go on with our lives. Getting old...wrinkles...kids growing (= growing problems)...husbands...illness...you name it. We aren't getting any younger. But for the life of me I could not understand why she thinks we need face. I mean, speaking for myself, I could do without that face that stares back at me in the mirror each day that I cannot even recognize. I mean, why so many wrinkles and grey hair and who's neck IS that anyway! I have been contimplating using that neck exerciser (as seen on tv - lol) to make that chicken neck go away and hope for the return of my OWN neck. Anyway, she kept saying we need "face". I would repeat her..."Face?". She would repeat it..."face". "Vic, why do we need face? I'm not getting it". She says, "No, FACE" as if I heard something different that time...Still hearing face. OK. "I don't think we need face. Afterall, Vic, face is the problem". She says, "No, face is NOT the problem. Face is the answer! Without it we are done!". Now at this point I am laughing out loud cause I KNOW she MUST be trying to say something other than face. And usually by this point in our conversation the word that she is trying to say is wrong (like OY for oil) and I finally get it because there IS no word "oy"...but not this time. She knows I am not getting it and she knows she cannot say it. And now we both are hysterical. She keeps saying face and I keep laughing. Finally she stopped and with the SLOWEST, most painful look on her face (ha! face - lol) she says, "FA......(and sticks her tongue between her teeth to make sure she doesn't mess this one up - as a Cambodian, that motion of the "th" sound is NOT native to her tongue. There is NO like sound in Cambodian, so imagine the effort it took to say this word) "TH". There. She said it. FAITH! I get it. We need FAITH!
....which is why when I cut her hair short and had sweeping bangs, she liked the back of her hair to "poo". "No, Vic, you do NOT want your hair to "poo". You want it to "Poof (emphasis on the f)". Again, no cambodian sound of "f". This ranks right up there with 'th". I gave her lesson after lesson how to say "poof" and she got it once. It was just as slow and just as painful as was "faith". But Victoria is my sweet cambodian sister who I sometimes have NO idea what she is saying...but in the end, if I keep "FAITH", I eventually get it. And she eventually makes it into my blog. Love ya Vic!
Until next time...
