There is a small street around the corner from
where we live with a morning market that sells fruits, veggies, and fish. I am
quite fond of walking to the market in the morning and picking out all my
favourite fruits and veggies that I don’t eat very often at home (so many pomegranates
and eggplants) and there is one guy in particular who I always buy vegetables
from. I think he has grown quite fond of Zahra and I; his face always lightens
up when he sees us approaching the stall. And lately we’ve started getting
small gifts in our bags of veggies such as a bonus bundle or parsley or an
extra tomato.
A couple of times, he threw in an extra handful
of chilli peppers. Appreciating the thought, we smiled and thanked him, but in
reality one tiny bite of one of those is enough to make my tongue numb. Not
wanting to waste them, we thought we would take them to work and gift them to
the women there.
However, when we tried to hand the chilli peppers out,
we were met with reluctance. One woman frantically waved her hands in avoidance
as Zahra tried to hand here three peppers and only accepted them when Zahra
added a fourth and agreed to place them on the desk instead of directly in her hand. We were confused but the
women smiled and thanked us.
Later, we recounted the experience to a local and learned that it is superstitious to gift chilli peppers. Three is
bad luck and, particularly when the peppers are given in one’s hands, it means
the end of a friendship.
We were horrified to realize our innocent gesture had gone horribly wrong! We bought sweets the next
morning to try and remedy the situation. Everyone laughed at our mistake and happily accepted the sweet as apology... oops!
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