"I love you...you funny man!"

"I love you!"
"Excuse me?"
"I love you!"

Great. Three months of intense pre-service training, countless hours of language learning, several sessions on cross cultural adjustment and a TEN week homestay and my first major test as a Peace Corps volunteer is this: my principal just told me he loved me.

"Mai kao jai," I say, " I don't understand"

My principal, a jolly man of 45 looks at me, not understanding why his new volunteer from the United States who is supposed to train his teachers how to teach English can not seem to understand a simple sentence. He tries again, this time slowly, "I...love...you"

"Okay," I think to myself, "my principal loves me." I mean he's known me for what, 2 days now...it's weird but I guess it's better than him hating me.

"You love me?" I ask him
"Yes, I love you..you a funny man!"

"Well that's shallow," I find myself thinking, "I mean, yeah I can be funny some times but to love me for..." And that's when it hit me! An opening...a possibility that this rather uncomfortable situation might simply be a misunderstanding...I go for it:

"You...laugh me?"
"Yes!" he says, not understanding why I am asking him again.
"Laugh? like (I put my hand on my belly) ha! ha! ha! laugh?"
"Yes! Yes!"
"Oh! So you laugh at me"
"Yes! I love at you!"

He is happy that I am now getting it.
I am RELIEVED that I am getting it.

"Put an 'f' sound" I tell him, "say 'fffffffff' "
" 'fffffff' "
"Now say it, Laugh fffffffffff"
"Love fffffffff"

This will be a fun 2 years.

Who knows, maybe now he laughs at me but after 2 years he might actually love me.

Or maybe not. :-)