Of Cheese And Privates

If there was one thing I learned in Peace Corps was the absolute need to have a sense of humor about yourself. If you weren’t going to be able to find the humor in awkward situations, you were in for a rough go of it. I recently wrote about false cognates and how they can cause awkwardness, embarrassment, and a lot of laughs.
When we first got here, I would look up the word of the items I needed and went to the markets prepared with my shopping list with the translation next to my original, lest I forget what I am looking for in the first place.
My accent can be tricky for native speakers to understand and I do find myself repeating words a lot. Sometimes someone will correct my pronunciation, but usually once they understand what I am after, they just fill the order. In our first week here, one moment that made me raise my brow was going into the cheese shop. He sells cheese. Nothing else. Just cheese. Based on the size of the bin and prominence on the display case I would guess he sells a lot of mozzarella cheese. He must hear that word a hundred times a day with people coming in and ordering an amount of mozzarella. With El at my side I had enough confidence to do the ordering here. I had just learned how to ask for a half-kilo and the rest I knew. The old man behind the counter addresses me so I know I am up. “Mezzo kilo mozzarella per fevore” His response, "huh?" tells me he did not understand the order. I just learned the word, so I repeated “mezzo kilo.” He is waiting for more, so I do it again “mezzo kilo mozzarella” he’s not getting it. I pull down my mask thinking that is surely complicating my enunciation. “Met-zo kee-lo motz-a-rell-a” that had to do the trick. Nope. “Motz-a-rell-a” at this point I am thinking maybe they don’t call it mozzarella here or what he has looks like mozzarella, but was in fact something else. I give one last shot, “motz-a-rell-a”. El now steps in and asks what the problem is with the order. The guy tells her, “I don’t know what he is asking for”, after pointing, a (figurative) light bulb explodes over his head, “ahhhh, muut-sarr-ella”! Yes, isn’t that what I said?
I don't think he was doing it to be a jerk, he just genuinely did not understand my accent. My confidence unshaken, I head to the bakery for bread. I love the fresh baked bread here and I buy a loaf a couple of times a week. The selection is great and they have big loaves, baguettes, sandwich bread, knots, all different options. I am only ever out for one of the large loaves. I wait for my cue of “prego” which is used to say "can I help you?". You hear it a lot in different contexts but when you hear “prego” in a market, you are up. Now, the word for bread is P A N E, but again my accent rears its head, though I wouldn't know for hours. “Uno grande pane per fevore” I say, and one large bread is what I got. All good. Later that day I was in the bar and meeting some of the guys for the first time. Alessio asks if I am practicing my Italian and wondering if I am having a hard time getting around. With my bakery triumph still fresh in my mind, I told him, and anyone within earshot that I am learning a little more every day. In fact today I was able to say “uno grande pan-nay per fevore”. Well, the place erupted in laughter which may or may not have include doubling over and honest to god guffaws. Even the non-English speakers were laughing. Alessio said “you mean pahn-ay, NOT pan-nay. You told the bakery you wanted a large penis!” Hearing the difference, I used this as a teachable moment to learn how to properly order bread in the future.
The joke was on this one guy laughing it up with everyone else as minutes later we were talking about drinks as Alessio was serving a nut flavored liqueur. No one knew how to say the nut in English. Almond? No. Peanut? No. Hazelnut? Yes. Mystery solved. But the conversation turns to liking the liquor but not the raw nut- I can’t stand filberts. This led to a guy proclaiming that he likes "penis" a lot. What did you say? I gently correct him, pee-nuts, NOT pee-nus. He failed to see the humor, but his friends certainly did. Hey, accent issues are a two way street, my friend.