when your plow is pencil

in some countries it would be wise to know what property value more, so you will know what and what not to hit.

 

i was talking nonsense with a colleague about our other colleague who just got an accident and broke his arm after hitting a herd of cows in an empty road to indonesia and papua new guinea border. he hit one of the six cows and the cow is dead. he was going 100 kms/hour with a motorcycle at that time.

 

i felt sorry because i know him a bit too well, but i also could not help not to laugh. mostly because in papua, people say that if you hit a living thing, the owner will ask you for money based on how many udders that being has. so, hitting a human is cheaper than hitting a pig. but hitting a pig is more expensive than any other animals, because it is a valuable property that worth more than, say, a house. and hitting female pig is worse because it is considered as a source of trustfund for its ability to breed piglets. therefore hitting a pig which is pregnant could be the worst, because not only we have to pay for the pig but also for its dead unborn piglets.

 

then an expat colleague joined the conversation. she said that in bosnia, in some particular area, people grow plums to make slivovitsa (plum brandy). then there was this one time when an expat was heading for a meeting in a village where the roads were slippery. at some point, it was so slippery that he could not control the vehicle that he had to choose to either hit a goat or hit a tree. he tried so hard to avoid the goat then finally hit a tree. the owner of the house came out and scolded him for hitting his tree. it was a plum tree with lots of plums on it. the expat tried to explain that he did not want to kill the goat. the owner said he doesn't care about the goat, it took him ten years to grow the plum, and when it was finally grow fruits an expat hit it. the expat had to pay something equal to a hundred euros today. that was a lot of money, considering it was back then in circa 99. but the funniest (or rather unfortunate for the expat) was when he was back to the office, the administrator told him that since it was the expat's mistake to not being able to control the vehicle, he had to fix the car, pay the farmer and not allowed to drive the company's car anymore. all in a day's work.

 

so, yes, cultural briefing is important.