Having been here
for eleven months, I have a good enough handle on the language to understand
most day-to-day conversations and enough knowledge of the culture to appreciate
day-to-day life. Still, I’ve found that people often do or say things that are
not only surprising but actually fly in the face of common sense. Here are a
few examples from just the past couple of weeks:
“The power’s on. Go
watch TV.”
-My host mother to
my nephew, while he was running around killing imaginary snakes in the front
yard.
Because watching Hindi soaps is a way better
activity for children than using their imagination, stretching their legs, and
being outdoors.
“Show me. How does
it look?”
A Nepali guy asking
to see a picture of a breathtaking sunset I’d just taken on my phone, rather than just looking at the real thing
in front of him.
“We should cover
the pomegranates with plastic bags to prevent them from rotting”
-My host
sister-in-law
But it turns out that covering the
pomegranates with plastic bags, and therefore preventing any moisture from
escaping even after it rained, didn’t prevent the pomegranates from rotting
within a few days.
“The water is
cleaner in America. That’s why the people there have white skin.”
-A woman in one of
my community’s women’s groups.
Although people of lighter skin do tend to
have cleaner water worldwide, I remain skeptical of the causality of this
relationship.
“If I rub his rash,
it’ll go away.”
-A mother in the
same women’s group
Because just like getting the wine stain out
of a carpet or massaging a knot out of someone’s shoulders, there’s no way rubbing
a rash could make it worse.
“You should take
some medicine to stop your diarrhea.”
-My host sister,
every time I’m sick
Because I’d much rather stop the diarrhea
and let whatever’s inside me grow and breed off of the food I’ve consumed.
My host sister
smearing a tomato on her leg when I accidentally spilled hot tea on her. Because nothing makes a burn better like the
acidity of tomato juice.
Most rural Nepali
women smearing cow dung on their kitchen floors to clean them.
Because bovine feces actually have do have
the capacity to disinfect, and not the opposite of that.
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