Sun Dec 10, 2006
Hello Everyone!
I hope you're getting into the spirit of the Christmas season and other upcoming holidays. Hopefully you have time to read a News Brief.
This happened shortly after I returned here from my summer vacation in SC. I went to Zayed Central Library one day for a meeting and saw one of the female Reference Assistants who had worked briefly at my library working at the Reference Desk so I stopped to chat.
She's a young Emirati woman who had given birth to her first child a few months before and was still skinny as a rail (grrr...). Naturally I inquired about her baby and she asked about my little granddaughter, Nell, who was born about the same time.
Then she looked at me and asked, "Have you gained weight?" Well that took me aback; it's not a question I would hear in the States even though I have gained quite a bit of weight in the ten years I've been home from my Peace Corps service, but I'm in a different culture here. So I said honestly, "I wasn't trying to, but yes, I have." She passionately inquired, "What's your secret?"
Never, never, never have I been asked that before and I absolutely did not know how to respond. In thinking about it later, I realized she was seriously asking a question she hoped to get an answer to and I could have said, "Eat lots of bread and never exercise," or something like that, but the chance slipped away. I think if I'm ever back at Zayed and see her, I'll tell her my "secret."
Actually, it's kind of nice living in a culture where being "overweight" isn't considered a crime against humanity. :)
Cheers!
Pat
No comments:
Post a Comment