And then Scrabble became more than just words...

I love Scrabble.  And Scramble.  And Bananagrams. And all other games that foster strategy through the use of language.  I don't enjoy dominating the world in Risk.  I'm not huge on the capitalism of Monopoly - but I do love language - and I miss playing these games.  I thought, moving out of the country of my native tongue, I would still find wordsmiths in a new family of English teachers.  Sadly, this has not been the case.  I toyed with the idea of posting an ad in Bread of Life:

WANTED:

WORD NERDS

Buuut I was draggin' my heals on it.  Then, last Thursday night while volunteering at BOL, one of the Vietnamese girls I close with [out of the blue] asked "Do you play Scrabble?"  I hoped that my verbal "yes" was more toned down than my mental "HELL YEAH!"  She said that was great, and that she'd bring her game next Thursday.  

Enter: Tonight.

I arrived at my usual time ready to eat my Thursday night western dinner.

[Which, side note, I don't think I can do anymore.  Since living here for a while, I've become incredibly accustomed to and in love with Vietnamese food.  Tonight was the final nail in the coffin of Western dinner as I showed up starving to BOL and only had five bites of my eggplant burger.  They make very yummy food but greasy french fries and breaded eggplant isn't working.  When I have pizza here I don't wake up feeling great the next day either.  Vietnamese food is always a balanced medley of starch, vegetable and meat.  When these powers combine, my body is captain digestion and feeling oh-so-good.  Not to mention all the prepared food here is fresh from the market - not processed or packed with preservatives.]  

So I found my regular booth next to the cash register and flashed Thu a smile. 

"Got the game?"

"Of course!"

Now, the way I play Scrabble is of the vicious variety.  I like competition and the best opponents for me will provide a somewhat balanced win/lose streak.  As I sat down with my very sweet, English language learning friend, I put away my Scrabble fangs and competitive drive. I realized how grateful I was that this prayer had been answered - even if not quite in the way I was hoping.  I didn't even flinch when it was apparent that we were not going to be keeping score.  

And then something awesome happened.  

Some of the other staff members came up from the kitchen and watched as Thu and I laid down our tiles.  Word after word, I signed (VSL if I knew it), and sometimes we would discuss the translation.

Then, two little boys who were eating dinner with their mother started eavesdropping on our game and gained enough courage to stand behind me and watch.  At this point, I looked around and took note of our small scrabble crowd: two Vietnamese hearing staff, four Vietnamese deaf staff, two young hearing Vietnamese boys and me.  One of the little boys crawled onto the booth next to me, and after a few turns, I was reaching around to play because most of him was sprawled in my lap, much to the giggles of my BOL friends.  

While I was eating my five bites of dinner, the game continued, with one player offering turns in Vietnamese and the other in English.  All I can say is,

Word.