A blog about sneezing.

I remember sitting in the SM class spring quarter last year talking about cultural things. We were asked about cultural things that were odd about Americans. I remember thinking thats silly, we don't do anything strange.

Oh boy. Did I have some lessons to learn.

For example. Sneezing. When someone sneezes, you say what? Bless you. Thats right.

Not in Cambodia. Which, I mean, it's totally a strange to do to begin with. Why do we do that? Why wouldn't the person who sneezed just say excuse me? That seems much more reasonable.

But yet, when you're in a culture that doesn't do it, you miss it. It's comfort.

So in my classroom, when ever anyone sneezes I say, bless you! I never said, this is what you should do. I just did it, because thats what I know.

Then one day a few weeks back in the middle of class while writing on the board, I sneezed. I continued writing as if nothing as happened and then I hear from behind me, bless you.

I froze. WHAT?! Noreak. This kid... This kid is a character. But he was so proud of himself. And I was proud. I spent the rest of the period smiling.

They noticed how happy it made me.

Now they say bless you. They say it when I'm standing there, and they say it when they don't know I'm listening.

The other day Vatanak sneezed and I saw him out of the corner of my eye look at me expectantly. And when I didn't say anything, he fake sneezed. And when I still didn't say anything. He said loudly, Bless meeeeeeee!

This week we were reading the Beatitudes. I gave them a Khmer copy and an English copy and we were talking about it in class, blessed are those, blessed are those. Pro-tiem-poh. Pro-tiem-poh.

I asked, who can bless you?

Students: God?

Teacher: Can people bless you?

They wavered... And I knew the question that was coming. --What about when we sneeze? You bless me then... And you're not Jesus...?

So we wrote one more Beatitude. You're blessed when you sneeze. Because it's polite.

"You are blessed when you're content with just who you are- no more, no less. Thats the moment you find yourselves proud owners of everything that can't be bought."

Verse 6.