Speaking with the locals

I bought a book on how to speak Bengali and it has some very amusing phrases that I cannot forsee myself ever using. Some of them are:

-There are many proofs that the earth is round.
-Small boys like to eat raw mangoes
-The barber began to shave the donkey.
-Where did I put my spectacles?
-They say that stale bread is tasty.
-They beat him with sticks.
-Mix manure and earth and put it on the garden.
-Unless he gets a knife, he can't work.

I don't see how the author of the book thought these phrases would be useful. I want to learn a really random one to tell the beggars and confuse them a bit. Maybe I will say, "The barber began to shave the donkey." That one sounds nice.

We will be here during Ramadan and the political elections. It should be exciting times. I don't really know what to expect. The strikes we have seen so far have not been violent and I hope that continues to be the case.