You know…16 inch centers…

Uh, actually it’s more like…no wait, don’t tell me… 40.5, um how do you say “centimeters” in Sinhalese? Centimeterrahya, or something like that. This gives new meaning to the old carpenters’ adage, “Measure twice, cut once.”
I curse you Kendall Central School District for not making me learn the metric system! No, they insisted on torturing me with algebra, brought to us all by our friends the Arabs, thanks for that, guys. Twenty plus years later, I have yet to be asked the value of x by anyone at all….ever…but I digress.
You’ll be shocked to hear that I’m not fluent in Sinhalese yet. (Imagine my surprise to learn that they even have their own freakin alphabet; 12 vowels and 35 consonants) What the heck was I thinking? Thank goodness for Chandima, our translator! I had a very funny moment at a camp, I was wearing a baseball cap in the sun. Chandima told me that the kids wanted to know where in England Prentice Hall was located. After I stared at her like a stoned surfer for a few minutes, she pointed to my hat: Prentice Hall English Oh, (duh) so I tried to explain, it’s English the discipline, not English as in the country. They didn’t get it. I tried again, they still didn’t get it. Then I told them Prentice Hall is a small village near Upper Saddle Rivershire, and that I still have a lot of friends there, drop in anytime. I think they bought it. Sometimes, we all just laugh nervously and move on to the next topic so it’s hard to tell.
Until next time, ayabowan (aah-yu-boh-wahn),
Sue