She is the best mango seller at Puok High School.  Not only that, but she has become my schoolyard love.  Not a school day goes by without a visit to a woman I call “Ming” (Aunt).

She, her husband and daughters run a snack shop behind the school from sunrise to sunset.

They sell all kinds of sliced and whole fruits.

No fruit in the entire world compares to Cambodia’s mangoes.  So, everyday I eat mangoes with “Ming”.

She doesn’t speak English and our Khmer conversations alarmed me at first.  But, now I understand her huge sense of humor.  Most of it surrounds her pot of sugar.

I like sugar poured on top of my sliced mangoes (that’s pretty standard serving practice here).  The Khmer word for white sugar “ska saa” rhymes with another word “kada saa” which means “white penis”.

So, every time I order “ska saa”, Ming asks me in Khmer, “Oh, you want white penis on your mangoes?”

You can understand why at first I didn’t know how to react to this, especially since she says it in front of dozens of students who erupt in laughter.  But, now that I’ve gotten to know her, I play along, saying in Khmer, “I already have a white penis, I’ll just take the sugar.”  Again, Ming and the crowd erupt in laughter, everyday.

She also tells me (in front of her husband) that she and I will get married one day.  She’s set our wedding date for the 32nd day of the 13th month.

I love this moment in my school day. It’s the same routine everyday, white sugar and marriage.  What’s changed is that now I know how to joke around in Khmer, and that makes me feel connected.