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Sun 14 Feb, 2010 12:27 am
Context:
IN THIS age of globalisation, you would expect people to value and be sensitive about their local differences and diversity. And few areas could be more critical than different peoples' understanding of the human mind when it comes to mental health and illness.
For example, a Nigerian man might experience a culturally distinct form of depression by describing a "peppery" feeling in his head, while a Chinese farmer might speak only of shoulder or stomach aches. Salvadorean women refugees suffering psychological trauma after a long civil war, on the other hand, often experience something called calorias, a feeling of intense body heat.
@oristarA,
Calorias is not an English word, I know it as a Spanish word meaning calories.
The text is claiming it has a local meaning in the country of El Salvador (where Spanish is spoken) as a "feeling of intense body heat." I don't have any reason not to believe this.