Language Barriers and Parking Spaces

I was at the school playground for a play date while Colin and his friend were playing. A little boy just a bit older, maybe 4 1/2 joined the boys and they were having a blast. We saw a woman we assumed was his mom. He was not in uniform, but neither were our boys, so we didn't think much of it. When it came time to leave, I noticed that the woman I previously assumed to be his mom was nowhere to be found, so I asked him if his mom was around as we didn't want to leave him alone (not that he seemed to be worried at all, lol.)

He just looked at me. My friend, Rachel, noticing that didn't register and is much more familiar with local custom thought to ask the better question of "Is your mom or maid around? Do you have an adult or person you are with? Do you have a person?" He looked at her quite confidently (not in an older kid snarky kind of way) and said with a straight, somewhat confused face "No, I have a vegetable."

Trying our best to contain our snickers, we looked around and saw two women sitting just beyond a horse statue (see picture).

So, Rachel proceeds to ask, pointing in that direction, "are those your people?" He looked at her like she was a fool and quickly said "No, that's a horse." As if to say 'you silly lady!' At that point we could no longer contain our laughter and how this simple act of making sure this child was attended to had become somewhat of a verbal spar between a small child and a 30-something year old mother. 

We gave it one last shot explaining that we meant the people behind he horse, to which he responded by pointing at his nose injury and saying, "My nose hurts." At that point, knowing that either the child had his own agenda or was just pure and simple not understanding us, we decided to head off knowing that he was in a safe, gated and guarded environment.

We'll just chalk this one up to the language barrier.

For one last good laugh today, I'll share with you what I like to call a 'Duba-irony'. This one being that the majority of cars here are oversized SUVs, on the side of Land Crusiers and Range Rovers, not CRVs and Muranos - yet the parking spaces are made for the hatchback Yaris' that are beloved by many of the 'workers' and car renters like ourselves. That being said, my rental accord is pushing the size limit on these spots. So, on a recent trip to the mall with my friend Beth, I actually had to park, then crawl into the backseat to be able to get out after of course first letting her out before I even pulled in. I apologize if this doesn't sound funny, but just picture me crawling back, over the car seat, then out of the car. Anyway, we found it quite amusing! This picture doesn't even begin to show the severity of how little room there was! I had to do an angle so the driver of the bohemouth vehicle on the other side could at least get in!