Cultural paralysis: a condition of complete social helplessness brought on by an inability to distinguish among the taboos and etiquette of multiple societies. CP is most acutely experienced by those who have travelled and lived in 3 or more countries and can no longer remember which rules apply to which location.
In this particular instance, I was sitting in a restaurant at lunch and the plate of chicken and rice had just been set in front of me. Suddenly I realized that I wasn't sure how to eat the chicken. So I started eating the other stuff and (as subtlely as possible) glanced around the table to see how others were eating the chicken. The thing is that in some places you leave the piece of chicken on the plate and pull off small pieces with your right hand. In other places it is perfectly acceptable to pick up the chicken and eat it off the bone. Turns out I saw people doing both. The one person I saw picking off pieces with the right hand also happens to be from a more Muslim part of the country. So, I think it may be that in some parts of Tanzania, the picking-off-pieces technique may be more acceptable. So my lapse may have helped me learn something that otherwise I would have kept assuming that I didn't need to know.
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