Yonder Lies It

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I stood in shock and speechless at the very image that was unfolding like a motion picture right before my eyes. I understood the power of cultural shocks, the power of cultural encounters and the power of feeling superior right after the incident. I know how to eat an avocado, un ahuacatl, and my swedish suegro, my father in-law doesn’t. I was with him last night. We were sharing a meal and I brought some vittles. I slid the kitchen knife smack in the midle of the aguacate, and cut it in half. The one half retains the big seed and the other shows a perfectly shaped half hole, un hermoso huequito. At the same time he asked me what that was, perhaps enticed by the glowing fresh and en su punto green color of the fruit, he picked it up and began to cut a wedge much as you would cut it from a lemon. I saw aghast that he did not take the peel off as his hand promptly placed the verdura in his mouth. The reeling of the movie was almost life like to be true, wait, it was life like, I kindly told him not to eat the peel. He didn’t, he said ok in a non-chalant manner, not noticing perhaps that this was the first time he ever tried the sacred fruit that brings so many memories of an ancient civilization to my mind, soul, the Aztecs.

I realized then how superior can one sometimes feel over other people. I felt pity for my father in-law for not knowing how to eat an avocado. Maybe it’s a mexican thing. On after thought it is also a sign that he has stopped seeing me with those eyes of his that always saw strangeness in me. The differences of another culture that popped, oozed out me, after 9 years, doesn’t seem to bother him anymore and perhaps he is more ready than ever to start trying the very things my strange culture has to offer. Maybeso, who knows. But I still feel sorry the poor lad was about to eat an avocado peel had I not stopped him in his tracks….


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