Small town girl in Nepal : Please Forgive Me

Please forgive me

As time approaches for me coming home I fear I may have picked up some bad habits during these last 8+ months living in a Nepali village. So things such as…..

I may spit an abnormal amount in public settings and not think twice about it.

Burping while eating is totally acceptable and thought of as a compliment.

I may ask you how much things cost (purses, shoes, cloths, jewelry ect), super inappropriate but so normal here.

Meeting new people one of the first questions I ask might be have you eaten or are you married and if you haven’t married why not?

When I hear my name I may holler “Hajur!”

I will probably talk about poop way more than anyone ever should and it might get brought up while eating as well…..common topic of conversation with other volunteers and Nepalese.

When drinking water I might not touch the bottle to my lips, I ‘waterfall,’ because touching your lips to a glass or bottle is “juto.”

If you touch something with your left hand and I give you a mortified look please just point out that you don’t wipe your ass with your left hand as I do in Nepal.

If I walk around without shoes wherever I go and walk around your house with dirty feet, stop me at the door and tell me to wash them.

If I call myself fat way too often, I am not feeling sorry for myself, I simply have adapted to the understanding that my fatness is the root to most of my issues. Aka: I get hot at night because I am fat, I sweat because I am fat, I like spicy food because I am fat, I drink a lot of water because I am fat, ect. Nepalese definitely have made my skin a bit thicker.

If you complain about a petty issue I might call you out and not sympathize like a normal human would. I have adapted a harder exterior and have become even more blunt (if you can believe that was possible).

I will flip my words around and sometimes not make sense because this language is completely backwards from English.

Forgive me if I cannot eat with silverware properly and lick my fingers and wash my mouth with my drinking water after my meal.

I may break into tears when I see a full menu and will not be able to make up my mind on what to eat for quite some time.