thanks, babel

I've had more and more conversations where I've been forced to speak only the local language, no matter if what I'm discussing is something I know vocabulary for. And of course this leads to some pretty funny and embarrassing mishaps!

First, a couple of weeks ago, Kishori and Bhanu were over for lunch. We all speak English except for Kishori, but I like to speak what I can in her language so she feels included. That particular day, husband had a bit of the tummy troubles. Stomach is payt, and I knew that well because we have to explain to nationals a lot that we have weak stomachs and so we can't drink the water. Anyway, husband was eating very lightly, so I explained to them that his stomach was messed up. For some reason I said paat instead of payt. I corrected myself, but Kishori and Ashu were suppressing some giggles. Husband noticed and said, "Paat must mean something. What did she say?" Bhanu replied, and this is a direct quote, "It means fart."

Last week, once again I was with Kishori, this time at her weekly ladies group gathering. I was chatting with a young lady, and decided what the heck, I'll try to tell her my story in her language. This may seem impressive, but I memorized it awhile back, so it wasn't like I was coming up with it all on my own. She listened and enjoyed it, so feeling rather confident, I decided to go ahead and just tell her the great news as well. I've never tried this before, but I had a picture tool with me, so I thought it might be easy. I made it a little ways without a problem until I got to the part of being buried in the grave. I realized that I didn't know how to say grave, bury, tomb, or any other words relatively close! The picture showed a big stone and a very Roman-looking guard standing by it. So I pointed and said the only words I could think of, "There was a big rock, and the police."