Well okay, maybe the 20-some Indian children staring at me didn't have the vocabulary to actually articulate that. But, if I learned anything from teaching English as a foreign language, it was how to understand people based on expression and tone. Needless to say, the students' reaction suggested they were completely and utterly appalled at the very thought of human beings eating cow, an animal their religion deems as holy.
As I continued babbling about life in America, I noticed that every student in the class was clearly fascinated by me - if not by what I was saying (with their teacher translating as needed in Hindi), then by how different (non-Indian) I looked. They ate up every word that I spoke, full of questions and hungry for more.
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| Ever wonder where the expression "holy cow!" comes from? |
