Cultural Moments

Because this culture has had a lot of Western influence, it feels much more "normal" to me than some of the other places I have lived.  China, for example, sometimes felt like living on the moon.  Everything was different.  Here, not so much.  That may be in part due to the fact that we have lived outside of the US for years now.  If I count my time in China before I was married, I have lived outside of the U.S. for seven years now.  Crazy!  At least crazy is how I'm gonna act the next time I'm in the states (family: I apologize in advance for the weird and embarrassing ways that I will behave the next time we are on the continent).  So as I was saying.  It feels pretty "normal" to us most days, but sometimes I am still surprised at things that happen here--things that feel really foreign to me.  Last week we were at an ice cream store and Maya was working on a cone.  I had scraped off most of the ice cream into a cup and then given her the cone (because the child cannot handle that much ice cream without LOTS of supervision, and a bib, and a chair, and a bath afterward).  This was the kind of store where you just stand around outside and eat your ice cream.  So as Maya is trying to figure out how to keep up with the heat that is melting her ice cream, this female employee of the ice cream shop comes up and starts chatting it up with her (read: adoring her).  This is extremely common here.  Strangers give my kid candy all the time (family:  we will need to work on stranger danger when we are there).  It is not uncommon to look across the sanctuary at church and see that Maya has left the kids time, snuck back into the sanctuary, and is perched on the lap of someone who she knows will give her an entire package of Mentos!  As you can imagine, she loves church.  Back to the ice cream shop.  After several minutes of this young woman being delighted that Maya will answer with a few words of Arabic, she takes the ice cream cone out of her hand, goes over to the soft serve machine, and tops it off with a few more inches of glorious goodness!  This was a first.  Usually it's just a sucker, or some gummi worms, but topping off your soft serve?  I can get excited about this new perk!  Now if only I could get Starbucks employees to love her. . . (read: love me). 

The other surprising cultural moment came last night.  We were coming home kind of late-ish from friends'.  It was around 8 and it was Maya, Zain and I.  We happened upon a man pulling his pants down, pooping in the planters outside of our building!  It was dark, and sidewalks/streets are poorly lit, so I was hoping that we could get past without Maya noticing.  No luck.  "What that man is doing?"  I am SO not good on the spot.  I hate being asked important questions and being expected to answer right then.  I would rather write than talk.  I love texting because it means I can avoid actually talking to people.  I did NOT know what to say, so as best I could, I rushed her into our gate and tried to get her to rush with me.  Once we were safely in the house, I tried to explain that it's not nice to take our clothes off outside and it's not nice to poop outside and when someone does something that isn't nice, we don't watch.  (because she continued to state, "I want to see what is he doing").  I tried not to freak out and make a big deal about it, even though I was freaking out internally.  Apparently, the world is every man's urinal, because it is quite common for men to just pee against a wall, behind their car, you know--wherever.  But this was my first poop experience.  With an adult.  Pooping right into our planters.  I'm kind of tempted to look for the evidence today as I pass by the planters!  Just curious, what would you say to your kid if they asked, "What he is doing?"?