Yesterday I was riding my bicycle back to our house from town. A kid who was probably in his early teens rode up next to me and started chatting. His name was Mohammad, big surprise huh? He was on his way back from playing cricket in town and he had his cricket bat on the back of his bicycle. Cricket bats cost about $1.75 here but that isn't really important to this story. We talked a bit and eventually he asks what my religion is. I tell him I'm a Christian. He then asks me why I have a beard (it has been cold so I've refused to trim it until it warms up). I said that Christians in America have beards. He asked if all of them do. I said no, but then mentioned that not all Muslims in Bangladesh do either. He then said a bunch of stuff that I didn't understand. I did catch one particular word that he used a fair amount and so I looked it up when I got home. The word was, "pap" which means "sin". I don't know what he was saying about it but I get the feeling he thought I was doing a lot of it.
One other note of interest. I also noticed another word while looking in the dictionary. Just a heads up, if you are in Bangladesh and someone starts saying that you are a "papi", it isn't a term of endearment. It means you are a hardened sinner who is set in the ways of sin. Bengali people are much kinder than any other group of people I've ever met as a whole, but if they start calling me that, I think I'll be stepping up my awareness a couple of notches.
Speaking of my beard, I've decided to grow it for the next while. I will shave it off for my trip home but it's just too good of a conversation topic here to pass up growing it. That said, it isn't all that pretty so I'll probably not be going out of my way to post pictures, lol.
2 comments:
If your profile picture is any indication of growth potential, I bet you can grow a quite enviable beard.
You mean you're not going to do a blog specifically for chronicling the growth of your beard?
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