Saturday, January 28, 2012

"le va a doler el cuello"

"you'll hurt your neck"
or
"his neck is going to hurt"

I hear this phrase all the time here, and I'm wondering what it is that preoccupies everyone so much with other peoples' necks.

So, I ride the school bus to work every morning with the students.  My interest in the neck-worries started on the bus, where I would hear the bus nanny constantly say, "le va a doler el cuello."  Basically the scenario would be: kid falls asleep; kid's head tilts to one side; nanny wakes the child up telling him not to do that or his neck would hurt; kid inevitably falls asleep in the exact same position.

One day, the bus driver took it upon himself to ensure that all the kids arrived free of neck pain.  He turned around and saw a child sleeping in some awkward position in the front row.  When his attempts at verbally waking the child up weren't working, he tried calling the nanny up to the front of the bus.  It seemed so urgent. The nanny didn't notice at first, so he called and called until she heard him ("Look at Johnny there...le va a doler el cuello!") and came to the poor sleeping child's rescue.

I was just at an event with Daniel and his family; a 70th birthday party extravaganza for someone I don't know.  Daniel's brother was sitting in a chair at our round table that was not directly facing the stage, so he had his head turned to watch.  Of course, mom-in-law says, "turn your chair around, le va a doler el cuello!"

Ok, I get it, nobody likes a crick in their neck.  But I honestly must admit that when I see people sitting/laying/sleeping in an awkward way, my first thought is rarely about how their neck might feel tomorrow.  Apparently here in Honduras, proactive measures are taken to avoid neck pain.  How kind.

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