Cultural Bloopers...aka My First Month in Africa!

Man, I never would have thought that one person could learn so much in one month. I spent 3 weeks in Africa Based Orientation and just spent 1 week taking a Language Acquisition course. Although these courses were very helpful and in some ways essential, there's nothing like learning from your own silly cultural mistakes. There's so many...I'm wondering which one I'm willing to share. Hmmm.... Well, you know the word pants...it means something else here. I found out that pants are underwear not trousers. So, when you call trousers pants your whole life, it's a little hard to break that habit. Anyways, on the way home from church, some Kenyan friends and I were having a cultural conversation. One thing you see a lot of here is women wearing skirts. You hardly see women wearing pants...I mean trousers. So I asked some of my friends (which included a MALE)...what do you think about women wearing pants?!!! They both looked at me and said, "What"?! After realizing my silly and somewhat embarrassing mistake, I yelled ,"I mean trousers!" We all laughed and I was teased for a while. However, I think the habit is broken. Pants will forever be called trousers! Ahh, there are many more stories but I choose to keep my dignity.

My Ministry Team to Kisooni (Sam, me, Miriam, & Ngumbi)