Sunday, February 18, 2007

A whole new world!

I can already feel myself speaking in broken English. We arrived at the guest house to be greeted by a barefoot boy who carried our bags in and started cleaning the kitchen. We tried to introduce ourselves but found it a futile mission – no English. Then, we tried to find out where a good place to eat in town might be – this turned into a game of charades as we were acting out walking, eating, paying, and leaving. Didn’t work.

Finally, we made our way to the main thoroughfare and found a small eatery on the side of the road. Hungrily, I started eating with my fork and spoon (no knife available) with my napkin in my lap. This, I quickly learned from the stares and head shaking, was bad form, so I converted to the “proper” way – eating only with my right hand. It’s messy, but proper.

Matt reminded me of a history class we took in Thailand where we learned the left hand is considered dirty (for reasons that I will not post – just can’t think how to type that discretely) so only the right can be used to eat. This is going to be interesting…

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