Name That Fruit

I believe I've hit the pinnacle of awkward dinner conversations this week.

I've come to an area called Masaka, which is about 2-3 hours west of Kampala. I've been staying in the guest room of the area office, and as it turns out, there is only one other gentleman who lives here full time. Yes, he is another Bangladeshi. Now, he is very nice, super polite and very accommodating, but he's also unbelievably shy and awkward. I've realized that if I don't maintain some sort of superficial conversation at mealtime, he will most likely not say a single word and sit in silence for fear of not knowing the right thing to say. After exhausting all the small talk I could think of -- how long have you been here, how is your family, how do you like the work, etc -- our conversations have devolved to games of name that fruit.

"Do you have this in your country?" "Have you ever tried _____?"

Yes, no, maybe...

He gets most excited when he asks this question, and I tell him no, I've never seen such a fruit or that we don't have that in my country. He also takes great joy in showing me a fruit that I have ostensibly never seen before. The only problem is that most of the time, it actually IS a fruit that I know or have tried; I've just misunderstood his accent, or it's called by a different name here.

The first night, we had a misunderstanding about paw paw fruit (which actually turned out to be papaya by a different name here). This evening, I guess he had asked me if I had ever had avocado before, but he said it in such an indiscernible accent that I had told him I've never had such a fruit. Well, he was appropriately disappointed when he made the house boy go and fetch one to show me, and I had to confess that we actually see those quite frequently in America but that they are much less delicious there.

I also got laughed at by him (and the houseboy who overheard) when I told him that I thought that pineapples grew on trees for the longest time. I mean, honest mistake right? It's not as though I got to see so many pineapple plantations growing up in Jersey, Garden State or not. Oh, but if I may digress for a bit, the pineapples are delicious here!! They're wonderfully sweet and so nice and ripe that you can eat the entire thing. None of this eating around the hard, petrified core.

Oh, but I do take credit for showing this gentleman his first Kiwi fruit thanks to the magic of the internet.

In any case, if this all seems really inane and mundane -- well, that's because it is. But such has been the course of my evenings every day this week.

Wow. I cannot wait to go back to overpriced ethnic food amongst random strangers in Kampala.