cross cultural customs

This morning R received a call on my cell, it was her niece. I handed her the phone and immediately her disposition sank so I couldn't help but to try to overhear the conversation. Her niece informed her that her husband had passed away. Then just before R got really upset her niece blurted out "April fools!" (in hindi of corse)
Two things ran through my head: 1) I can't believe they know about April fools day, and 2) That was a really low down April fools joke.
After she got off the phone with her niece R and I had a good laugh about how April fools day spans cultures.

Birthdays

As many of you remeber from one of my January posts I had a wonderful birthday party here; complete with a 3 year old twin, 2 cakes, candles (that I did not get to blow out), games, and PRESENTS! But that is not the norm here. Birthdays are small affairs, some religions here do not even recognize birthdays. For those few who have stuck their necks out to befriend and help Z and I navigate through life here I make it my mission to do something for their birthday.

Today the daughter of Mr & Mrs had a birthday. I made her cinnamon rolls because that is her favorite thing that I bake. I don't blame her my birthday cake making skillz are heavily lacking...and besides cinnamon rolls at 11 am is a good start to any birthday. Unfortunately her 3 year old son who we affectionately, and sometimes not so affectionately, call "nut cut" (which means trouble maker) ate 5 of her birthday cinnamon rolls! What is it with 3 year olds and birthdays?

420's

420 is the number in Curry land penal code which con artists are given. So when people here talk about con artists and frauds they call them 420 men. In our first 6 months here we were very naive so we were approached by 420's on a regular basis, and because we were so naive we did not even know they were conning us. Now we can ask more questions and understand a little more what is going on so we are not so easy targets for the run of the mill 420's.
People in our neighborhood celebrate two major holidays. And on those holidays it is customary to give people who work for you on a regular basis a holiday bonus. So R gets a bonus, the neighborhood trash guy gets a bonus, and our neighborhood night watchman gets a bonus. On both holidays the watchman came to our gate told us who he was and asked for his bonus. We didn't question him, we simply gave him his bonus. Well three nights ago Z and I were up pretty late and we heard the watchmen outside our gate so Z went to talk to him. To our surprise he was not the same man we have been giving bonuses to the past two holidays. Instead we had given the bonuses to a 420 - dope!
A couple of days ago another 420 came by. He claimed to be the sewer cleaner and said we owed him for 6 months of work. Z responded by saying that we had never called for or hired a sewer cleaner, why was he cleaning our sewage without being asked to do so? Then he claimed it was a neighborhood service and that all our neighbors pay him. So Z did the next logical thing, he went and asked our neighbors if they pay this man to clean their sewage. As soon as Z started to talk to one of our neighbors the man quickly got on his motor bike and skirted off...our neighbors had no clue who he was nor did he ask them for money. Yes! One 420 who didn't get away with it.

running out of gas...

Yesterday was a full day of guests, which I love...For me hosting is fun but at times here in Curry land it has been a flop because of a lot of unpredictable factors. Last night I made my guests a Curry land dish, while we were all eating I noticed that the texture of the rice was a little crunchy. Needless to say I was more than disappointed that the main dish did not turn out perfect and I was going over and over in my mind what went wrong. Shortly after my dinner guests left another guest showed up so I went back into the kitchen to whip up some chai. To my astonishment the stove stop would not light, I had Z inspect it because lets face it he is so handy :) and the root of the problem...our gas cylinder was out of gas. By our guesstimating it probably went out sometime while dinner was cooking over the stove...hence why we had crunchy rice. Like I said unpredictable factors...
Needless to say our second guest did not get chai...fortunately I have a microwave and tea bags so that was served instead. But Z and I learned geography...
- Younan = Greece
- Miser = Egypt
*just in case any of you were interested in the Persian/Urdu names for these two ancient civilizations.

So many bananas...

So little time.

tummy bugs :(

One day out of every month new tummy bugs like to let me know that they have arrived. This morning those pesky bugs woke me up at 6 am...urgh! So on days like today I do not wonder far from the proximity of any clean bathroom. I get language practice by watching Bollywood movies. I also get a lot of work done on the computer. I have to find other ways to be productive when tummy bugs disrupt the scheduled events for the day.

Idioms

Now that Z and I understand the language more we are having fun learning local sayings. Before when we had the language comprehension of 3 year olds however it was really difficult to understand because people here use just as many idiomatic expressions as good ole' boys from the south. So phrases would sound a little like this..."I ____ frog ____ boys play ____ come here." (the blanks represent other words in the phrases in which my brain would draw a blank)
Anyways here are a few of my favorites that I have literally translated and tried to give the English idiom equivalent.

• "There is something black in the beans." In American this means "There is something fishy going on."
• "The snake is gone and now you are hitting its trail." From what I can gather our idiomatic equivalent would be "A day late and a dollar short."
• "He is running around in the sun." meaning : "He is running around like a chicken with its head cut off." (They really avoid running errands in the heat of the day, they think whoever does run around in the sun must be crazy!)
• "I was breaking rocks." meaning: "I could not sleep a wink last night."
• "His anger is on his nose" = "He wears his emotions on his sleeves."