Laughter and Jackfruit

For the entirety of my time in Thailand, I lived in the same little house with the same two neighbors on either side. On the right was a house with a beautiful garden. We’d catch glimpses of it through the fence railings or over the concrete wall that separated our yards. On the left was the neighborhood’s designated “cat lady.” She staunchly insisted on feeding ten to twenty cats twice a day and was ready to defend them from all enemies, be it a fast car or a raised eyebrow.

With language, cultural barriers, and differing schedules, it took time, God’s grace, and a jackfruit mishap for me to get to know these neighbors.

I had a day off work and had gone for a bike ride and an early morning swim, pedaling home barefoot and dripping wet. I was almost to my door when the neighbor on the right called out to me. I could just see her eyes peering over the high wall. I made my way over, standing on tiptoes so that we could see each other more clearly, and we exchanged the usual greetings in a halting mix of Thai and English. As we talked, I could feel the water from my recent swim running down my legs and pooling at my feet. The rapidly growing puddle of mud was beginning to squelch between my toes, and any language skills I might have had were evaporating as I struggled to concentrate. Eventually, the conversation progressed enough that I learned why she had called me over—they’d gotten a jackfruit off their tree, and it was too big for them alone. Did I want some?

I’d never tried jackfruit. “Sure,” I said and watched in astonishment as my neighbor proceeded to rig up an impromptu pulley system and haul a piece of the biggest jackfruit I have seen over the wall. At that point, I’d only seen jackfruit cut up and presented on ice in traveling fruit carts or at market stalls. The spiky thing in my hands was a bit of a surprise. Seeing my uncertainty, my neighbor smiled reassuringly. “It’s easy,” she said, “you just need to cut it up. Eat the yellow part.” “Ok.” I said. After the appropriate thank yous and goodbyes, I made my way inside, had a quick shower, and went to the kitchen to tackle this new fruit. “It’s easy,” I told myself, “Just cut it up. I can cut up fruit. I’m an adult. I don’t need help. I can do this.”

No one told me that jackfruit is sticky.

The first sign of trouble was when I discovered that I couldn’t put the knife down. It was stuck to my hand.

“It’s fine,” I told myself, “I’ll wash my hands and try again.”

I got stuck to the tap when I tried to turn it on, stuck to the soap, and stuck to the dish towel when I went to dry my hands. The knife was still firmly stuck to my palm.

“Okay,” I thought, “I may as well finish cutting up the fruit, and then I can figure out how to deal with the stickiness.”

Whole chunks of jackfruit rind stuck to my arm. For a moment, I really thought I’d be stuck to the table forever. A second knife joined the first one on my palm. The cutting board briefly came across the room with me, stuck closer to my elbow.

In a moment of panic, I reached for some paper towel realizing too late that I would never again be parted from it.

It was time to get help.

Outside, my neighbor had taken some jackfruit across to the cat lady, and the two of them had stopped outside my house to talk. From where they stood, they had a clear view of the chaos unfolding in my kitchen. They managed to politely ignore it until I opened the screen door (getting stuck to it in the process) and held out my arms, complete with assorted kitchen utensils and jackfruit rind.

The women took one look at me and burst out laughing. Not polite laughter but doubled over in the street, tears in the eyes, gasping for breath laughter. It was contagious. I had to laugh as well. Each time one of us would stop, we’d look at my arms and lose it all over again.

That shared laughter broke through a thousand barriers.

The two women made me sit on the step outside, laughing again when I got one arm stuck to it. Without hesitation, they bustled around in my kitchen. There was no sense of intruding in a stranger’s place, these were old friends helping one another. They found some cooking oil and, sitting on either side of me, they used it to wash my arms, carefully removing whatever was stuck to me and any remaining gluey residue, laughing and chatting the whole time.

When I was finally unstuck and clean again, still they stayed.

They cut up the jackfruit (I was clearly not to be trusted with it), got cold water and other snacks from my fridge, found cups and plates in my cupboard, and the three of us sat on the steps outside my house and we laughed and talked and ate jackfruit.

Are there times that you have been able to share laughter with people where you live? How has laughter built relationships in your life?