Cross cultural hot dog issues

In honor of our last day of Kinyarwanda class, I present a lesson in cross cultural confusion. A few weeks ago, we were going over the imperfect tense by discussing what we used to do in America. The conversation inevitably turned to food.

“In America, I used to eat ice cream,” I said. My classmate said “In America, I used to eat hot dogs.”

Our teacher reacted with great surprise, which in America Rwandan means an explanation like “aaaaaay!”

“I know, some people find them gross, but I love them,” said my classmate.

“They eat them in the Congo, but Rwandans don’t do that, it’s wrong here,” said our teacher.

It was then that we realized he thought we were discussing eating actual dogs.