Say what??

We have the most wonderful housekeeper here at work. She's from Thailand, and has been in the United States for over 20 years. Which is why I find it so odd that her English can be so difficult to understand. One day she was telling me about her son, when he was little he got up every morning and went outside to pray... I thought that was kind of strange, for a little kid to go outside and pray, but what do I know about her customs, it could happen. It wasn't til a few moments later that I realized she was telling me that he went out to PLAY. Duh.. Anyway, she always comes to visit me in my brief 1.5 hours here. The other day she brought me the best homemade egg rolls! And I'm not generally an egg roll fan, but these were delicious.
She was here the other night, she took a seat next to me and went on about another co-worker of hers. I sort of just nodded, smiled, added all the right gestures that went along with what she was saying. I don't have much of a clue about what she was saying, only that it ended with her saying that the other lady was fat, and that people had better not mess with her. Now, she is the most soft spoken, sweetest lady here, not to mention the fact that you could blow her over she's so tiny. But nonetheless, I payed extra special attention her rantings, and tried as hard as I could to understand... I think I got away with it, she doesn't know that I can hardly understand her. I'm getting better, it's kind of like hanging out with my 2 year old all day, eventually you're going to get what he's telling you. Unfortunately, I can't ask the housekeeper to "show me" like I do when I don't understand my son..