Kindness makes the world go round

The first time I went home to the UK after moving to Thailand I told my parents about how some food stuffs are available in Bangkok and some not. “I have a friend, S,” I said, “who loves mushy peas, but she can’t get them. She carts them back from the UK when she can.” A week or so later I’m about to fly back to Bangkok, and my Dad brings me a box of dried peas “For your friend, S, JJ,” he says.

My friend S has moved to Delhi since then. Last month she visited Bangkok and she told me she comes to visit with an empty suitcase because she can get more things here in Thailand than she can in India. We chuckle about how all things are relative… I ask if she has space for a bedspread that I really want to get from Delhi – a replacement for one that’s falling apart after 20 years. She tells me she’s happy to get it and will bring it in November. We swap emails about details until she’s in possession of my bedspread.

Her trip to Bangkok has been cancelled, but she’s going to Singapore. With Husband’s help we arrange for his nice colleague A who is based in Singapore office to take in the bedspread at the office. (The bedspread is shown around colleagues to mixed reception! Cheek of it!)

One of Husband’s Thai colleagues, B, is going to Singapore. Would she be kind enough to bring back the bedspread for JJ? “Sure,” she says, “but I won’t release it into your care until you get me a copy of Delia Smith’s roast potatoes recipe.”

(Kind Thai colleague B collected the bedspread today, but was rather shocked as it turned out not to be what she thought she had heard Husband ask her to collect. She said to Colleague A, where is the "pest spray" you need me to take back?)

Bilingual Chinese whispers aside, I like to see it’s not just money that makes the world go round.