Say what?

It's always the little things that can cause a culture clash here and I find myself thinking, "Hmmm, how do I explain that?" 

Friday I made these breadsticks for our community meal. 

They're witches' fingers. I mean, why not?

As I walked across the street to our fellow missioner's house a neighbor stopped me and asked what I was carrying. "Bread," was all I said. But I kept moving the tray away from her so she couldn't get a good look at the shape of them. If she asked, I would've felt obligated to explain not only why I made bread in the shape of fingers, but witches' fingers nonetheless. Witches are a big part of the culture here and it's definitely not something to mess around with. I can't fully explain to you how unbelievably odd it would've been to her that we were eating food in the shape of witches' fingers. Maybe it'd be like if some foreigner in the states made food in the shape of doctors' toes. But not only that, I also would've had to try to explain all about halloween--you know, why we dress up in costumes and beg for candy at our neighbors' houses once a year and how we watch scary movies and carve pumpkins. It's all very culturally odd here and I would've had to do it in Swahili, which was a little too much for me at the moment. 

Luckily, "bread" was a good enough response because all she said was if there was any left over afterwards she's like a taste.