So yesterday I was sitting with the neighbors and one of them was changing her three month old son’s diaper.  She started talking about how it is customary to cut a boys private parts when they are 8 years old.  And she said the word for doctor, which sounds alot like the word for daughter.

Now understand that in the course of a conversation, I only understand a portion of it, and then try to make sense of what I understood.  So I understood them to tell me that they sometimes turn a little boy into a little girl by cutting off his private parts.  I kept saying “i don think I understand what you are saying.”  And they would repeat themselves.  Finally, after they said the same thign about 4 times, I repeated back to them what i was hearing.  They burst out laughing and tried to explain differently, and I finally understood they were talking about circumcision.

Wow - sometimes I realize my language is no where near where I thought it was.