Tuesday, 10 April 2007

Hello Moto...

One of the biggest (no pun intended) differences between here and home is that people can be totally frank when you wouldn't expect them to be, and so vague when you want an answer!
 
As I've already said, people stare (yeah, yeah, I know, maybe it's justified in my case) at white people and seem to be fascinated by difference - I've had kids jump on me wanting to touch my arms and people asking if I dye my hair to make it lighter. They are also fascinated by fatness - I'm not kidding, if they see a fat person they have to comment, and literally cannot shut up about it! This is funny, because in my culture, you don't just say to someone "you are really fat" - or "moto", which is the Nepali word for it. In our group, we have someone who is let's say "larger than life", boisterous and enthusiastic - so a few comments have been cropping up!
 
On the other hand, while Nepalis are very straight talking about some things, other times it's virtuously impossible to get a satisfactory answer "well, it could be this...but actually I'll just talk about something totally different and hope you won't notice that I don't know the answer or don't want to say...". Sometimes this is fine, other times it is frustrating! But overall, the cultural differences make it interesting and a very positive experience.

No comments: