Ridiculous

There is only one step from the sublime to the ridiculous.
-Napoleon Bonaparte

Some things about America are just really hard to people explain here. Yesterday, I was talking to my tutor about how it’s illegal to burn trash in cities in America. I was explaining the ozone layer, and how burning trash releases chemicals that are harmful to it. Then, I tried to explain the garbage collection system in most American cities. Ridiculous! Here, everyone burns their trash in their yard. To try to explain how, in America, we put our trash in bags and bins and leave it at the side of the road so that men can come around and collect it in a big truck… well, it just seems absurd. All you need here is a matchbox.

Also yesterday, I visited the home of a traditional birth attendant. A woman who had just delivered was there- I’m guessing her baby was only an hour or two old. With the help of my tutor, I asked them about how they name babies in Uganda- do they pick out a name before the birth, or after? Did this new baby have a name? The baby didn’t have a name just yet. I explained that, in America, many people pick out the name of the child before it is born. My tutor translated this, but I understand enough Luganda to know that she was telling them that Americans pick out a boy’s name and a girl’s name, and then name the child whatever sex it turns out to be. So then I told them, well, actually, we have a machine that’s used to see inside the woman’s body, so many people know in advance if it’s a boy or girl. Ridiculous! Can you imagine hearing such a thing, after delivering your baby on a foam mattress on the dirt floor of a house made of mud?

I never knew how literal the term “foreign concept” could be. There are some things that I simply cannot explain without pausing to think about how absolutely silly we are.