…Penguins

While we were unpacking our first shipment last week, my housekeeper and I had fun guessing what some of the things might be before we unwrapped them. The laundry basket was pretty easy, but the skis and small “trinkets” were not. It’s like Christmas or a birthday, you’ve probably done it too.

At one point, we picked up two brown paper wrapped items that looked pretty similar to each other, though one was slightly heavier. As we unrolled the huge amount of paper surrounding them, I uncovered a small rug, and she uncovered a giant penguin, and began laughing… “it’s… it’s…. it’s…. a…” At that moment I would have learned one of the possibly least useful words in Bangla, but I didn’t catch it. (It sounded like the word Kamala. But, Komola is orange, so I am not sure. When Mr. A and I tried to look it up in the online translation dictionaries later, they had no ideas, as if penguin is not a real word.)

It was a great moment, and somewhat giddy, as we giggled about the huge plastic penguin bedecked in mardi gras beads amidst the piles of paper and packaging.