Adventures in everyday life

When you live in another country often the simple tasks of everyday life become adventures and take much longer then they would in America. Shopping for a simple garden rake for example. On Thursday Jasmine and I needed to go buy a rake for our yard, so after having coffee together we decided to go searching for a rake. We weren't quite sure where to start looking (they don't exactly have Home Depot or Lowes here) but decided that the shop where we bought the weed whacker would be a good start. So we went to this store on the north end of town that sells weed whackers...and guitars...and jewelry...which is right next to the store that sells washing machines and refrigerators...and bike helmets. Not seeing any rakes in plan sight, we attempted to explain to the man in the store what we were looking for. But between our broken Thai and his broken English we weren't getting far, in spite of our incredible skills at drawing pictures of rakes. With some help from a lady that spoke a lot of English he was able to understand what we were looking for and told us where a couple places to look would be. But rather then just give us directions and send us on our way - he proceeded to jump on his bike and lead us to two different stores, neither of which had a rake. By this point we were ready to give up but he drew us a map for one more place to try. Following his map, we ended up discovering a giant garden center and a rake! Hallelujah! So that is my story of rake hunting in Thailand. I love how eager these people are to help and the randomness of a third world country.