Finger Food

I have little faith in my ability to resume writing on this blog. Timorous, tentative steps. The ice is thinner than it looks.

My accomplishment today was to spend time with my student, MM, and two of her children. We filled out applications for a library card (which I’d had the unusual foresight to print online last night) and had no trouble in getting the cards issued. I was so excited I felt like it was a much more momentous life event than it was. Even the library woman seemed excited. MM perused the beautiful picture books and, to my delight, checked out an Olivia the Pig counting book. Her daughter (in her late teens) got an Elmo DVD, which is a brilliant idea for picking up the language.

It took quite a while for MM to fill out the form, and she did something she tries to avoid: write in pen. But she had nothing to fear; she didn’t make a single error. She has a good grasp of the English alphabet already.

I asked MM for a Nepali language assignment for next week. I don’t think it’s fair that she has to do all the learning. So she assigned me to memorize this in Nepali: Have you finished your homework, sister? It is really hard: Timeelay ramro homework garisakayo, didi?” Believe me: that garisakayo isn’t pronounced anything like anything I’d expect and I think when you pronounce it funny it means something else, because I heard the distant rumble of amusement.

I don’t know much about South Asians but those I’ve met have a playful sense of humor. When I sat down to lunch with them (dal) MM waved her finger at me and said with a chuckle, “No spoon!” Now, I spent six weeks in Nepal and managed always to avoid the right-hand-eating tradition of the natives. It was forks all the way for me. But I have to say it always looked like fun, as they sunk their fingers deep into the giant plate of rice and kneaded the colorful ingredients together, bringing the concoction to their lips in neat and dripless motions. How hard can this be, I thought? Children have been eating with their hands since the invention of fingers.

Well, it was hard enough so that the two women were doubled over in laughter, and when the man looked up at what I was doing he said, “Use a fork!” But I wouldn’t. And I think I got a little better at it. You kind of have to pretend your four fingers are a steam shovel, and your thumb is a hydraulic compactor.