The King’s Barge

Auntie Tamada was a very special woman, a distant aunt to my first husband. We lived with her for a few months when we first married, and kept in touch through the years. Her name, Tamada means “ordinary” in Thai. She was far from ordinary. She loved life, and people, and food. Once when my parents were visiting us, Auntie Tamada invited all of us over for dinner which she had ordered from a variety of street vendors. Immediately she recognized that dad wanted to try everything and learn what he could about this new culture (new to him). He had a very gentle and kind spirit, and she insisted on teaching him as much as she could in that short evening about eating Thai food. I was busy with a child, so didn’t take much notice of what was going on, but I think my mom was being ignored.

Auntie Tamada had been a widow for several years at that point, and would tell us stories about her husband. He was very creative, wrote Thai hymns, and was a Christian minister. He also assisted with one of the translations of the Bible into the Thai language. And he carved a replica of the King’s barge out of a water buffalo tusk.

After dinner that evening she insisted that dad take the King’s barge home to Canada with him. It stayed on his shelf for many years. Now it sits on top of my china cabinet.

I wonder why this extraordinary woman was given the name “Tamada”…