Efficiency

I was talking to this girl a few days ago and I mentioned the word “efficient.”  She didn’t understand it, so I endeavoured to explain it to her using simpler terminology.  After some time, I decided to teach through example.

“You know McDonalds?  Well they are very efficient,” I state.  She shakes her head.

“Ok... KFC?” I query.  I think that she must know KFC since it’s so popular in India.  Judging from the people I’ve interacted with, KFC might be even more popular than McDonald’s AND it’s in the city that is 3h away from us.

“No, aka.” She wrinkles her forehead in confusion.  “What is that?”

I decide not to even attempt to explain McDonalds because first I’d have to explain what hamburgers and fries are, so I thought KFC would be easier to explain.  “Well, KFC is a place that makes food really fast and they make fried chicken.”

“Oh, like what Ama does.  She makes fried chicken too!” she exclaimed.

Hmmmm.... Well, I’m glad that she connected the new knowledge to her background knowledge, but in my explanation I totally forgot that village culture is not a restaurant-oriented culture.  I don’t even know if she’s ever eaten in a restaurant before.  Lol... it’s so funny how I often realize that things we take for granted as common knowledge in our culture is not common knowledge in other cultures, especially rural areas that haven’t been touched by technologies such as computers and the internet.