Lost in Translation (in the village now)

Teaching 'my family', so ask them to draw theirs. But this takes most of the lesson because find out they have extremely large number of brothers and sisters. Decide this must be a reflection on the lack of family planning in the rural areas and one of the reasons they're so poor. Ah, poor ignorant villagers.

Later realise I realise I am ignorant. In Nepal, everyone calls everyone 'bhai' (little brother), 'dai' (big brother), 'bahini' (little sister) just as a sign of friendliness. You call the waiter or taxi driver bhai if he's younger and dai if hes older. Turns out some of them were just drawing all their friends. But more worrying, it turns out that the direct translation of 'little brother', 'sano bhai', actually means something else. Its an amusing euphemism for the male genitalia. Not only does it explain some giggles in class, but also sheds a worrying light on times when people asked me about my 'sano bhai' and thinking they meant Duncan proceeded to tell them that he was taller than me and very good at sports...