This week, after seven lessons in Thai, I went to my very first home stay (!!!). In a “slum” community called Teparak 5, I met my host mom and dad. They speak no English, and by the afternoon of the first full day together I had completely exhausted my Thai, my most complex sentences including “my mom is a doctor” and “my boyfriend’s name is John”. But those exchanges had gone very well, especially with the aid of pictures.

On the second night I decided to go to the living room area and read with my host mom. My host mom decided she wanted a “late night” snack (bedtime is around nine thirty here) and I followed her to the kitchen area motioning me helping cut fruit, having completely forgotten the words to offer help. After much gesturing, I was handed a knife and started cutting something she called “boom”. I have no idea what it is in English, but imagine a potato mixed with an apple and a jicama.

My host mom started talking in Thai. I didn’t understand a word she was saying, but I don’t think she expected me to. She didn’t pause or look up from her “boom” cutting to see if I understood. Her tone was soft and almost sad; I think she was confiding some problem that had been weighing on her. We then sat down and ate the boom in complete silence, but it was a beautiful silence. I found myself a lot closer to my host mom than I had been twenty minutes ago. We smiled at each other a few times, a deep, full hearted smile that made me warm to my toes. It was the kind of smile usually reserved for close friends and family members, the kind that indicates a true connection to someone and full, complete trust and love.

And this got me thinking. While language is necessary to efficiently communicate needs and wants in daily life, there already exists a connection that stretches across age, gender and experiences. It can be tapped into and exposed, bringing a Thai electronics store worker and an American twenty one year old student together in the middle of the night in a small community by the train tracks.