overheard

this morning, as i lazily awakened myself from deep slumber, i could hear my host-niece and nephew playing outside my window.

"no, you do one, two, three, four, five, six!"

"no! you hit this and it goes left, one, two, three, four, five, six!"

"yayyyy!"

when i walked outside, we had a discussion about what they were counting, and hitting, and they explained a game they learned while they were visiting their cousins for the last two weeks.  it's quite complicated, involves a lot of counting steps and then smacking one yellow toy with another toy, but it's also, from what i can tell, the ultimate in fun. (as most things are when you're four?)

almost as fun as when topher and i came home last night, and the kids were on the balcony, and we hadn't seen them for two whole weeks, and all we heard was:

"aunt! uncle! we're home now!  we've come back from phnom penh!"

to which we said:

"oh, we are happy! we missed you very much!"

we were gifted their resounding cries of how much they missed us too, and how much fun they had riding in a taxi and going to a party, but they really missed us and they were so happy to be home.

and by the time we had gotten through the gate, our littlest niece had run down the stairs, right into my legs, to give chris and me the biggest hug of all time.

and it may have been all i could do to stop smiling as i fell asleep last night after this exchange, and it may have been difficult to contain my anticipation to spend a few minutes talking with them this morning, as soon as i heard them upon waking.

and it may be that some of my best conversations in this country happen with my host-nieces and nephew, and they happen entirely in khmer, and somehow there is complete and total understanding on both sides when we have these conversations?!

and it may be that this was a delightful weekend.