A Cultural Faux-Pas

I had a cultural awareness moment earlier this week. Unfortunately, the awareness only came after boldly committing a cultural taboo. Despite the fact that I was born in Central African Republic and lived for 16 years in West Africa, I have now learned that I must not consider myself exempt from "learning moments" as I call them.

My significant learning moment was on Tuesday. Several of the staff (and sometimes students) play Phase 10 during lunch on Tuesdays. My greatest all-time arch-enemy in the game is Mr. Hama. He is another French teacher and we are great friends. He calls me Lindsay-a. (It's a long story.) On this particular Tuesday, I approached the table outside where we usually play and saw this:

In the actual episode, Mr. Hama was sitting in the chair on the right. 

These pictures were staged several days later for blogging purposes.

My first reaction: "I need to clear the table so that we have room for the cards." Without further thought, I grabbed the pod on the table and flung it to the ground.

Only then did I hear my friend Ruth's astonished voice: "Lindsay!" She ran over to where it landed, picked it up, and put it in Mr. Hama's hands. Only then did I notice his astonished expression.

His only remark was asked in all sincerity and incredulous complexity, "Pourquoi tu jettes ma nourriture?" (Translation: Why are you throwing my food?)

What? His food??? How was I supposed to know that? The table sits right under a tree and there are often leaves and leavey-things that have to be removed from the table before playing. I thought the pod was no different. As my dad often tells me, "There you go thinking again!"

Ruth, Mr. Hama, and I laughed and laughed and laughed. I was SO embarrassed. Imagine I walked up to your table at lunch where you were eating a piece of pizza and I grabbed it and flung it to the floor! I do not think I will ever hear the end of this story.

Here are a few more pictures:

Once I looked at the pod closely, I realized I had seen them and even tried them when I lived in Burkina. Momentary lapse of memory! Oops!