I wanted to tell you about a few funny/weird incidents that have occurred since I've been here. Being in another country comes with many experiences and sometimes, when you can't understand the language, it makes for some funny situations:
Scene 1: I was sitting with a woman at Kalighat the other day during the afternoon shift. This woman is missing an arm and a leg but she is generally quite a happy person, except when she has to take her medicine...but that's another story. So I was sitting there, just talking to her, even though she speaks no english and is mentally challenged. And I decide to try out my Bengali and say "Amar nam Allison" which means "My name is Allison." And then I ask "Namke?" which is "Name?" and she just smiles at me. So I asked her "Namke?" for probably the next 5 minutes, not even knowing if she could actually talk. All of a sudden she gets a really excited look on her face and says "Jolla!" and I'm thinking "Oh my gosh! Her name is Jolla!" Feeling like this is a huge breakthrough, I begin to end every sentence with 'Jolla,' her beautiful name! I continue to talk to her and bring her lunch..."Here's your lunch, Jolla!" I handed her lunch and all of a sudden she starts pointing and saying "Jolla" over and over again and I'm thinknig "What the-". It looked like she was pointing towards another woman whose name happened to be Usha so I tried to explain to Jolla that Jolla was Jolla and Usha was Usha. She obviously did not understand me and continued to point in that direction and, by this point, was shouting "JOLLA!" I was starting to stress as she was getting all riled up and I was standing there clueless. And that's when I see it...right behind Usha is a cup of water. I stood up, grabbed it and handed it to her. "Jolla?" I asked uncertain. "Jolla!" she said happily. It was then that I realized I had just been calling this woman 'cup of water' for the past 30 minutes. Kinda makes me wonder how silly I look on a daily basis :)
Scene 2: There is a certain fruit here that is very popular called 'lychee.' It looks sort of like a strawberry but it has a hard red shell with spikes on it, but when you take this outer cover off...it looks like an eyeball. It's white and squishy and nasty. Now, Anthony prides himself on being a 'foody' and is brave enough to try everything. So he comes up to me before chai time at Kalighat and tells me he tried this thing and I should try it. I think his exact words were 'It's not bad'. This should have been my first red flag. If Anthony isn't absolutely in love with a food item, something is wrong. So I go over and see this bunch of lychee which basically looks like a plate of eyeballs. Red flag number 2. If it looks gross, it probably tastes gross. At this point I still have somewhat of a brain and say "Eh...I'll pass." Good thinking, right? Well I turn around and notice there's like 3 patients watching me. One who speaks some english starts to grin and says "Try!". Red flag number 3. If a patient gets a sly grin on his face and tells you to eat something...don't. However, quite honestly, I could not resist his smiling face, so I groaned and picked up one of the slimy, squishy, eyeball-like fruit things and popped it in my mouth. Shock does not begin to describe my reaction to this taste. As I'm chewing it moves from sweet to spicy to salty to peppery and then all of these together. My eyes are watering and I'm desperately chewing this disgusting fruit, trying to get to a point I can swallow. Finally I gulp it down and try and play it off cool as the patient is looking at me expectantly. "Good," I croak. He saw right through that little mask...maybe it was the watering eyes that gave me away. Or the fact that I didn't want to close my mouth until I had something to take away the taste, so I just walked around with it hanging open stupidly. Either way, the patient bursts out "Bahahaha!" as I walk away and Anthony, being the sympathetic person he is, joined right in. Now, Anthony will probably tell you I'm exaggerating. I definitely am not. My final parting advice is this: Never, I repeat, NEVER eat a lychee.
Scene 1: I was sitting with a woman at Kalighat the other day during the afternoon shift. This woman is missing an arm and a leg but she is generally quite a happy person, except when she has to take her medicine...but that's another story. So I was sitting there, just talking to her, even though she speaks no english and is mentally challenged. And I decide to try out my Bengali and say "Amar nam Allison" which means "My name is Allison." And then I ask "Namke?" which is "Name?" and she just smiles at me. So I asked her "Namke?" for probably the next 5 minutes, not even knowing if she could actually talk. All of a sudden she gets a really excited look on her face and says "Jolla!" and I'm thinking "Oh my gosh! Her name is Jolla!" Feeling like this is a huge breakthrough, I begin to end every sentence with 'Jolla,' her beautiful name! I continue to talk to her and bring her lunch..."Here's your lunch, Jolla!" I handed her lunch and all of a sudden she starts pointing and saying "Jolla" over and over again and I'm thinknig "What the-". It looked like she was pointing towards another woman whose name happened to be Usha so I tried to explain to Jolla that Jolla was Jolla and Usha was Usha. She obviously did not understand me and continued to point in that direction and, by this point, was shouting "JOLLA!" I was starting to stress as she was getting all riled up and I was standing there clueless. And that's when I see it...right behind Usha is a cup of water. I stood up, grabbed it and handed it to her. "Jolla?" I asked uncertain. "Jolla!" she said happily. It was then that I realized I had just been calling this woman 'cup of water' for the past 30 minutes. Kinda makes me wonder how silly I look on a daily basis :)
Scene 2: There is a certain fruit here that is very popular called 'lychee.' It looks sort of like a strawberry but it has a hard red shell with spikes on it, but when you take this outer cover off...it looks like an eyeball. It's white and squishy and nasty. Now, Anthony prides himself on being a 'foody' and is brave enough to try everything. So he comes up to me before chai time at Kalighat and tells me he tried this thing and I should try it. I think his exact words were 'It's not bad'. This should have been my first red flag. If Anthony isn't absolutely in love with a food item, something is wrong. So I go over and see this bunch of lychee which basically looks like a plate of eyeballs. Red flag number 2. If it looks gross, it probably tastes gross. At this point I still have somewhat of a brain and say "Eh...I'll pass." Good thinking, right? Well I turn around and notice there's like 3 patients watching me. One who speaks some english starts to grin and says "Try!". Red flag number 3. If a patient gets a sly grin on his face and tells you to eat something...don't. However, quite honestly, I could not resist his smiling face, so I groaned and picked up one of the slimy, squishy, eyeball-like fruit things and popped it in my mouth. Shock does not begin to describe my reaction to this taste. As I'm chewing it moves from sweet to spicy to salty to peppery and then all of these together. My eyes are watering and I'm desperately chewing this disgusting fruit, trying to get to a point I can swallow. Finally I gulp it down and try and play it off cool as the patient is looking at me expectantly. "Good," I croak. He saw right through that little mask...maybe it was the watering eyes that gave me away. Or the fact that I didn't want to close my mouth until I had something to take away the taste, so I just walked around with it hanging open stupidly. Either way, the patient bursts out "Bahahaha!" as I walk away and Anthony, being the sympathetic person he is, joined right in. Now, Anthony will probably tell you I'm exaggerating. I definitely am not. My final parting advice is this: Never, I repeat, NEVER eat a lychee.
I love this!!! Died laughing.
ReplyDeleteOh Allison!! I laughed so hard!!! There's a show on cable that follows a guy who will eat anything - ANYTHING - and that's where I heard of lychee before! And you describe it so well!
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