This Might be Rude - Story 3 : Yo Mama…

Have you ever had a co-worker call you fat, repeatedly, and get others to join in on viciously roasting you? I have, and I’ll share why I didn’t call HR.

This isn’t your standard office incident. At the time, I was serving in the Peace Corps, working in a rural village about 30 miles by bicycle outside Lilongwe, Malawi, near the border with Mozambique.

During my service I was a part of many programs, but one thing I did consistently in my second year was work at the local secondary school as an English teacher. While English was the official language of education, hardly anyone in my community spoke it. My fellow teachers spoke more English than most, so my time at the school was a nice chance to speak my mother tongue for a couple hours.

One day in the teacher’s lounge, a fellow teacher placed a pineapple Fanta (my favorite) on my desk with a grin. “I hear you are working to be fit," he said.

I had recently started doing calisthenics. I wasn’t surprised he knew. It was a small village without electricity or the accompanying distractions. I was used to being the center of gossip. Before I could respond the teacher continued, ‘You should not bother. You are too fat!’

I had been warned that in a country where “hunger season” claimed too many lives, being called fat was often meant as a compliment. Didn’t mean it wasn’t bracing. But what was even more shocking was how enthusiastically everyone else joined in.

Before I knew it, the other teachers were chiming in:

‘You are too fat to do exercise.’

‘You are too fat to be getting through the door.’

‘You are better to drink Fanta, you are after all, too fat.’

After the first few seconds of shock I broke into uncontrollable laughter. Which, of course, just encouraged them more. I got a solid tight 5 of the Malawian equivalent of ‘yo mama’s so fat’ all aimed at me.

It’s a genuinely sweet memory, but it could have gone very differently. If I hadn’t come into the experience prepared to be the outsider, with three months of cultural training and a year of being schooled by the universe, I might have taken their teasing as cruelty. I could have reacted like I would in a U.S. office, and it would have made everything very awkward. But on this day, I was able to laugh and marvel at a version of body positivity I never saw coming.

Acceptance doesn’t always sound like a hug. Sometimes it sounds like a roast from your coworkers.

But here’s the nuance I’ve learned since: just because something is meant kindly doesn’t mean you have to accept it. Understanding intent is powerful—it gives you context and helps you step outside your own lens. But that doesn’t mean abandoning your own boundaries. In this case, I knew I was being included, not insulted. But in other settings, even with the same intent, I might draw the line. Cultural differences don’t give people a free pass to say whatever they want without consequences. And when you're the cultural majority, it's even more important to remember your norms aren’t universal. The real art of working across cultures is learning to read both the intent and the room.

Do you have your own ‘they called me fat’ story? Or possibly, ‘I called someone fat’? I’d love to hear about it!