August 26, 2005
Towels in Guiana
I was talking to an older, lower middle class woman from Guiana I know and she made three noteworthy points about her home country:
1.) In Guiana now (where the primary local language is English), people don't use the word "beggar" anymore: political correctness (although she did not call it such) has come to country and they are fighting poverty--in this deeply poor country--through language.
2.) Although they speak English there, they have a very strong and distinctive accent. For example, the majority of the population (or at least a very significant portion) is descended from immigrants from India, so the accent is closer to the Indian accent than any other. However, when she now speaks to her grandchildren or goes back to her country, all the young people speak in an accent that, to her, is undistinguishable from English.
3.) The greatest gift you can give someone in Guiana is a towel. Towels there are infrequent and expensive -- and when you do have them, you constantly have them with you and use them for a seemingly unlimited number of uses. She's going back to Guiana soon to visit and taking with her a whole suitcase of mostly towels to give to "the poor people, I can't say 'beggar' any more" there.
Maybe the Hitchhikers Guide was based on reality, then?
Posted by Morgan at 01:33 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
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I'm surprised the guyanese ministry of labor hasn't thought to replace the term "beggar" with "job created in the faith-based charity market"...
Posted by: ooghe at August 26, 2005 09:28 AM
From Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy:
Towels are the most useful thing it is possible to have handy in a crisis. One of the first things that Ford Prefect did for Arthur Dent after the demolition of the Earth was to equip him with a towel.
They can be used for snaring birds whilst falling from a three-mile high marble statue.
They can be used to signal temporally unstable spaceships by fossilizing them in planetary strata.
They can be soaked in nutrients to provide sustenance in awkward situations (Although, as Zaphod Beeblebrox found, this is not a terribly tasty solution to hunger).
They can also do a really good job of drying between your toes.
The Hitchhiker's Guide is full of suggestions for successful towel deployment. It is worth noting that a cup of white vinegar in a wash will help keep your towels fluffy and soft.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/hitchhikers/guide/towel.shtml
Posted by: Alex Jacobson at September 9, 2005 04:38 PM
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