Communicating through Cultures

“Are you Christian?” Mr. Bom asks me.
It’s a strange question to hear at a rural bus stop thirty minutes north of Chiang Mai. We’re toward the mountains, and instead of benches, there are thick beds of bamboo that locals doze on, and an elderly woman down the street grilling skewers of chicken and beef with a smoky glaze.
Mr. Bom is a house father of the orphanage where I’m working. He picks me up each day from the bus stop.
At first, the buses seemed completely inscrutable to me. They are small vans with leather benches opposite each other and no back door. They are different colors, red and yellow and blue, and there are curlicue Thai characters painted on the front. At each of the seven or eight stops it takes to reach Doi Saket, the bus is completely full, and yet more always clamber on, sometimes hanging off the back of the van.

When it comes to the last stop, my stop, I don’t realize at first. I look out the windows to see if I recognize the street. The last woman to get out motions to me, telling me that this is the last stop.
Before coming to Thailand, I had worried about being the only one to speak English. It was my first time so far from home and I came up blank each time I tried to imagine how I would interact with the kids. It only took minutes to realize that language is a small part of the human connection. I understood the kids and they understood me, and I was amazed at how much we could understand each other if we just tried.

Mr. Bom pulls up in his navy pick-up truck ten minutes later. I’m surprised to not see the back of his van filled with kids sitting on each other’s laps in their neatly pressed uniforms. He must have picked me up first today. I make to jump in the back like I usually do but he motions to the front seat.
“Oh, cold!” I say, referring to the welcome bursts from the air conditioning. I fan myself with my hands. “Very cold! Nice!” He nods with a smile, turns the vent toward me more. The radio is playing something I don’t recognize, a folksy sort of song.
“Are you Christian?” he asks me then.
I am, technically, but not really by practice, and the entire orphanage is, funded by group of churches in the Midwest.
“Yes,” I say. “I’m Christian.”
“Me, Christian,” he says, pointing to his chest. He points at the radio next. “This song, Christian.” He smiles. “And you, Christian!”
I nod at him and smile, and we continue to drive, the two of us listening to religious rock, on our way to pick the kids up from school.