11 May 2011
There have been so many awkward moments likely due to cultural differences and not knowing how to act that I have come up with a hand signal to represent a “missionary bomb.” The Missionary Bomb represents times of awkwardness or discomfort, sometimes just felt by us but usually felt by all involved. We have had several Missionary Bombs so far that I would like to share with you.
We were teaching at a Christian school for the end of last week and the beginning of this week and taught the children the song “My God is so Big” complete with the motions and part of the fun is that you start slowly and get faster each time you sing it. Once we had gone pretty fast I asked the teacher to translate that I didn’t think the children could go any faster, as a fun challenge which usually motivates the children. The teacher responded with this sharp look and stated that the children are still learning English and cannot go faster. Then she had the whole class prove to me that they could do it at a regular speed. Missionary Bomb! I just accidentally mocked a class for not speaking good enough English, ugh!
As we have been running each day we are used to being called mzungus, or white people, but the other day Angela shared that she was called a walrus and couldn’t figure it out. We all laughed and then shared it with Pastor Moses. He had the most puzzled look on his face. He repeated walrus and quickly figured out that in their accent it sounded like World Race and we all started laughing as we realized she was wearing her World Race shirt that day and the little girl was simply reading it. Missionary bomb.
When we were at the school we played a lot of futbol an since I was in flip flops I took them off so I could seriously play. I ended up cutting my toe – it was no big deal we had a first aid kit and it didn’t hurt, but several of the teachers apologized that I got hurt. I think that is cultural to apologize if guests get hurt and assume responsibility more so than in the states. So yesterday Christina got hurt and I do not think that she was aware that everyone would be so apologetic and due to the nature of the injury she wanted to share what happened to everyone. We were told we could use the bathroom that the teachers use which is an outhouse with a tiny square that you have to squat over. As Christina was leaving she fell in the little hole and scraped her leg, thankfully the hole was very deep so she didn’t land, if you will. That in itself is probably a Missionary Bomb but it kept getting worse as she would tell it so animatedly and everyone would laugh. Pastor John who was with us told us that they are not supposed to be laughing at that but the way she told it they couldn’t help themselves. I will give that a minor Missionary Bomb status since it was so funny.
I have plenty of other Missionary Bombs from the rest of the trip and plan on compiling those into another blog. But I think three Missionary Bombs in the first 11 days in Kenya is pretty good.
Stay tuned for more awkward moments!
