The Things I Will Miss: Advice Giving

We are getting ready to come back to the U.S. for six months (we'll be arriving in Birmingham July 1st, woo hoo!) and I keep thinking of things about this country that I will miss. Most of them are things that used to really upset or annoy me. But love (and I'm talkin' the real kind of love--the kind that takes supernatural intervention from a loving God) tends to make those the very things you end up loving. As I think of them over the next few days and weeks, I'll share them with you. I'll start off today with advice-giving. Now I'm not talking the occasional solicited kind of advice or something shared between close friends or even family members. I'm talking everyone from a stranger you meet in the bathroom to a man driving you in a taxi having something that you need to know. Advice giving is chronic and personal here. And if you're not used to it (or if you tend to take things personally) it can really feel like an attack. I've been given advice on how to clothe, feed, care for, and bathe our child. Some of the hardest things for me have been being told what I am doing wrong that is causing her to be fussy or unhappy. I've been told how to solve morning sickness, how to exercise (or not exercise) while pregnant, how to treat every illness from diarrhea (lemonade) to Narcolepsy (one of our personal favorites was a taxi driver volunteering to take me up onto a special mountain to sleep in order to heal me of my Narcolepsy). We're constantly given instruction on how to get into a parking spot by any passerby. In a particularly comical event, my American friends were even given instruction on how to speak English--by a man who could barely speak English. He was convinced that "Happy Sylvester" was a standard holiday greeting. We've been instructed in how to speak Arabic (of course), and often criticized and told that our accent is not very good. We've been told that the ash from the volcano in Iceland is the reason Matt had a cold and also the reason the fruits and vegetables are early this year. We've been told how to cook correctly and how we should arrange our furniture so that it looks better. We've been told to pierce Maya's ears since she was born.


Here are a few more favorites (they may or may not be helpful--we should probably try them!)

• If you have stomach cramps, drink lemonade


• If you have a belly ache it's because the A/C was blowing on your belly


• If you are nauseous, drink yogurt


• If there is anything wrong with you, drink tea and eat olives or garlic


• To help you have adequate milk if you are nursing, drink yogurt


• Do not drink anything while eating your meal, it will give you a stomach ache


• Do not drink cold drinks, it will give you a stomach ache/diarrhea


• Do not shave (your legs)--it is bad, use a wax-like process called sugaring to rip all of your hair out (including your arm hair)


• In the winter, always drink a glass of hot water before going out in order to avoid getting sick

Next post I think I'll talk about noise . . .