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First Impressions
27 January 2005
First impressions of life in South Asia: A recent hospital patient turned out to be a snake charmer. The nurses were not too pleased that he kept his basket of snakes under the bed. We hope they were fully charmed! Cooking gas is piped unmetered into homes. Therefore, buying matches is more expensive than leaving the stove on all the time. If possible, all toilets constructed here are supposed to face north or south. While doing one's thing, no one is to face his or her front or back towards Mecca. You may want to check your toilets for compliance. I am happy to report that our toilet here in the hospital faces south. Our three-year-old grandson was playing with his next door friend whose parents are French. He told his friend, "Sit down, we are going to the swimming pool." He said "sit down" in English, "we are going" in a local language, and "swimming pool" in French. There was a nice looking apartment building near us. A sign in beautiful lettering over the entrance door read, "Decent Apartments." Now, I know it is nice to rent a decent apartment, but there is something about the connotation. . . . One of the things the people here find strange about Westerners is that we take a bath/shower without our clothes on. Since privacy is not a commodity here, baths are taken clothed. Photocopies at stationery stores cost one and a half US cents per copy. My wife gave a big whoop one morning upon walking into the kitchen. There were two dead cockroaches on the floor. What a thrill! It meant two less live ones in the house. Rope is bought by weight, not by length. A pound of rope is very cheap. A local acquaintance asked me to be on the lookout for a wife for him. I asked what criteria I should be looking for. In order of importance was 1) her skin should not be too dark and not too light, and 2) she should have a job making at least USD $83 a month. Beyond that it didn't much matter. He has called me two times in the short time I've been here to check my progress. And finally, we recently attended a seminar on "honor and shame" in this culture. After survival, these two opposite sides of the same coin are the most important decision-making factors in people's lives. Therefore, it is far more effective to explain that our motivation for coming here is to bring honor to Jesus Christ than to state our motivation is to demonstrate the love of Christ. In our culture, we would more naturally say our motivation is to demonstrate the love of Christ. Actually, showing the love of Christ is part of bringing honor to God. It is just a cultural emphasis to remember. 
 
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