In case you are planning on coming to sub-Saharan Africa anytime soon, I wanted to give you the heads up on some topics of which to steer clear. Learn from my mistakes, I've been here 16 months and I'm still having to work through some of these topics.
Lilian and I were walking to get sweet potatos and I started to think it was a good idea to start describing oceanic animals. This led into a description of my days as a Shamu feeder at Sea World. This is a bad idea. Sea World has not even entered the realm of consciousness in land-locked Zambia.
Busiku and I were chatting outside as we dodged huge flying beetles. I was explaining to her that I lived in a basement prior to the current hut. Describing an underground home with windows is not easy. I left out the part about canned foods and Russian language books. That just sounds crazy.
Mulenga was flipping through a Newsweek on my porch. She came across this picture of some rich American that was going to the moon for a weekend holiday. Explaining travel into space is not something that is easily described. Plus, I'm not really sure that I understand this either.
Other topics to avoid: How music gets onto an IPOD. The World Wide Web. Why Americans want to be so skinny. I'm sure I'll think of more later...
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2 comments:
Have you tried to explain to them what a Big Hair and Bacardi Party is? :-) Miss ya and love ya. Can't wait to come see you. Thanks for the heads up on subjects not to touch while I'm out there.
Britt
I'm thinking of a "Night at the Villagio" Party, a bit village, a bit Vegas...we'll see. But yeah, the Big Hair and Bacardi party is better left for Stateside talk! ; )
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