I am fine!

Since arriving in Mutomo we have had our fair share of adventures in miscommunication. We thought we would share some of the fun and funny phrases and terms that we have learned here.

For example: 

Children here are taught English in school and the greeting they are taught is "How are you" and the response is "I am fine." The fact that so many people know at least a little bit of English has been really amazing and helpful. However, many people seem to only know this one phrase. So, it is very common to walk down the street and hear "muzungu... how are you?" It is also very common to be walking along and have someone just say "I am FINE." (It usually sounds really abrupt and angry for some reason, but they are probably trying to be freindly.) Northe has started answering these people with "Well, hello to you too," while Meg usually just says, "well that's good."

Instead of saying that their children have fever at home, parents will just say the children have "malaria" but the clinical staff here will describe it in their notes as "Hotness of the body." So far, meg, northe and luara have luckily not had the "hotness of the body."

As you may have noticed in our previous post, we have tried a lot of new foods here, but what we didn't mention is the way people describe foods. Basically anything that tastes good is "sweet." So everything from the donuts we have at teatime to the goat meat they describe as "sweet." However, the one thing that tastes really sweet to us in this cider drink that they call "snapp" but when we said it was sweet they say, "no it is strong." Go figure. 

When asked how his very ill son was doing every morning there was one dad who consistently said every morning: "My son is very very stupid..." Meg thought this was a little odd, but would just nod her head and continue her rounds. Then on the the last day when his son was better and getting ready to be discharged, the man said "Now my son is very very smart!" Apparently "smart" is more of a catch-all word meaning good or well but apparently also well dressed.

Whenever Laura or Northe or Meg wear a new outfit that someone else likes, they will say that we look "smart."

Laura,Meg and Northe looking "very smart" in there newly made Kenyan outfits. It is very difficult to get people here to smile in photos so the first photo is a kenyan style photo, then in Grala-family fashion, we took one funny one.