In Mizoram they eat snails and bees.
It's too friendly there. Half an hour of pleasantries later and you still haven't made your way out of a 1km long village. It's rather awkward turning down offers of places to sleep and eat without being able to communicate.
In Mizoram English is not widely spoken. The British did however give one parting gift, which you will hear when something is dropped. The words 'sorry' and 'excuse me'. Perhaps it was slightly shorter than 'min ngaidam roh' (formal: please forgive me) or 'ka tihpailh'. It's not just the word, it's apologising for everything which makes it.
Mizo people use feet and inches, at least for height. Maybe the USA and traditional Brits are not quite so alone. Myanmar (still Burma here) is or was also stuck in this ancient system. I'm six feet which makes me a certified giant. People take souvenir photos.
My friend tells me "if you're in the forest by yourself, best to keep murmuring. So many hunters, so many mistakes".
The wildlife sanctuary is the place people go hunting, no eyebrows are raised. Nobody quite understands why I don't want my guide to bring his gun. Unfortunately I am the one in danger of irony, for the first wildlife sanctuaries in India were created by the British... to preserve animals for hunting.
Mobile phone signal is a bit patchy in the villages, one man leads me to the signal point, the top of a hillock among the houses. On this side airtel, on the other side aircel. There is a wooden mobile phone stand on the airtel side, calls are best placed hands free.
Khawnge I kaldawn (where are you going). You must learn this, it's the question of Mizoram, from one mizo to another. These are the most frequent words you will hear.
About 5 years previously they finally demolished the town's inspection bungalow. I'm not sure quite why India kept these relics so long, some 60 years just in case the British came back? I can't say for sure if this was a colonial era inspection bungalow or something more modern. If anything now Mizoram is part of the Indian empire. It's one of my regrets that when I visited just a few years before I didn't get to stay in one of these bungalows. To drink tea and then opine to my heart's content about just how the country should be run.
Mizoram is a small state to have its own language, not much more than a million people. But of course, that's only the state language. I end up in a region where the people are paitae, who just about recognise the Mizo words I have been learning... as if it wasn't small enough. These 'Zomi' (hill people) assure me that the language has little in common with Mizo (people of the hills).
Mr. drinking problem, the hotel staff, suggests I try the local alcohol. Grape wine? I ask. No grape wine bad for health, rice wine. Stay tuned for more alcoholic words of wisdom.
In a first for India, the 'wine shop' has wine. It's filled with three local varieties of red wine, not a whiskey in sight!
It's too friendly there. Half an hour of pleasantries later and you still haven't made your way out of a 1km long village. It's rather awkward turning down offers of places to sleep and eat without being able to communicate.
In Mizoram English is not widely spoken. The British did however give one parting gift, which you will hear when something is dropped. The words 'sorry' and 'excuse me'. Perhaps it was slightly shorter than 'min ngaidam roh' (formal: please forgive me) or 'ka tihpailh'. It's not just the word, it's apologising for everything which makes it.
Mizo people use feet and inches, at least for height. Maybe the USA and traditional Brits are not quite so alone. Myanmar (still Burma here) is or was also stuck in this ancient system. I'm six feet which makes me a certified giant. People take souvenir photos.
My friend tells me "if you're in the forest by yourself, best to keep murmuring. So many hunters, so many mistakes".
The wildlife sanctuary is the place people go hunting, no eyebrows are raised. Nobody quite understands why I don't want my guide to bring his gun. Unfortunately I am the one in danger of irony, for the first wildlife sanctuaries in India were created by the British... to preserve animals for hunting.
Mobile phone signal is a bit patchy in the villages, one man leads me to the signal point, the top of a hillock among the houses. On this side airtel, on the other side aircel. There is a wooden mobile phone stand on the airtel side, calls are best placed hands free.
Khawnge I kaldawn (where are you going). You must learn this, it's the question of Mizoram, from one mizo to another. These are the most frequent words you will hear.
About 5 years previously they finally demolished the town's inspection bungalow. I'm not sure quite why India kept these relics so long, some 60 years just in case the British came back? I can't say for sure if this was a colonial era inspection bungalow or something more modern. If anything now Mizoram is part of the Indian empire. It's one of my regrets that when I visited just a few years before I didn't get to stay in one of these bungalows. To drink tea and then opine to my heart's content about just how the country should be run.
Mizoram is a small state to have its own language, not much more than a million people. But of course, that's only the state language. I end up in a region where the people are paitae, who just about recognise the Mizo words I have been learning... as if it wasn't small enough. These 'Zomi' (hill people) assure me that the language has little in common with Mizo (people of the hills).
Mr. drinking problem, the hotel staff, suggests I try the local alcohol. Grape wine? I ask. No grape wine bad for health, rice wine. Stay tuned for more alcoholic words of wisdom.
In a first for India, the 'wine shop' has wine. It's filled with three local varieties of red wine, not a whiskey in sight!
No comments:
Post a Comment