Funny Little Things

One of the things I enjoy so much about my Tahitian family is their sense of humor. There is a lot of laughing to be done here and I guess I'm the man for the job. I've always appreciated funny people.
We were playing poker with some pretty professional looking chips -although with no money. Aimana proceeded to do an impression of an American doing an impression of a French person. Talk about complex! But when Americans try to sound French, they tend to just put a "Z" sound in between all the words. For example, "Ze cardz are on ze table." Actual french says, "Les cartes sont sur la table." Not a "Z" sound to be found there. But he was quite hilarious doing this impression, keeping his pinkie finger on his chin, as he dropped one chip at a time into the pot. When he'd win the pot, his eyes would move back and forth crazily as his arms surrounded his winnings, drawing all the chips to himself. At one point, Tama and I couldn't hardly breathe from laughing so hard.

Aimana's little 5 year old boy, Taimoana, did another impression yesterday that really made me laugh. He was laying in a hammock and told me he was a person watching TV. He then had an incredibly bored expression on his face and proceeded to lift his hand every 2 seconds and make a little beep sound like he was changing the channel. He is truly an observer of life. He doesn't speak english. But at one point he almost fell and my automatic response was, "Careful!" Now he walks around saying, "Careful!" And he does it when it's appropriate. He is beyond his years. We went to the Immigration office to get my visa and he went along. When the lady helping me with the paperwork stepped out of the room for a moment, he whispered into my ear, "Do you want to marry her?"

Tama is also quite funny. You may have heard the old song, "Only You". Tama sings it, "Only Me". He seems to always have a song to sing. We were swatting at flies today and he started singing, "I believe I can fly..." It is really cool to see him interacting with his 4 month old son. He's got that little guy laughing all the time. Tama gave me a fruit to taste that I'd never seen before. He told me to be careful because it's got a nut inside. I said, "Just like your house." Wish I could post here a picture of his face when I said that. Today I noticed a keepsake box in the shape of a turtle. They used to have a pet turtle that has since died. I asked him if he has that box in his house in memory of his pet. He said, "Yes, we keep his ashes in there." :)

Sometimes I've thought that it would be a good idea to keep a journal of all the funny little things that happen to us throughout the week. I saw a movie once that was incredibly sad. But at the end the narration said, "Sometimes laughter can take you by surprise too." (and not just the painful things in life) God sends a lot of funny things our way. It's good to take notice!