Fat

Karen and I were pretty proud that we had managed to go into town and buy groceries at market all by ourselves. My Spanish had held out, and we had been able to find everything we needed.

At the last minute we decided to get some butter for pancakes and bread as a special treat. I left Karen outside the tiny store to watch our bags and ventured in alone.

Butter, butter, the word for butter is manteca, right? I thought to myself. I was fairly confident.

“Tiene manteca?” I asked.

The little lady nodded.

“Un media kilo, por favor,” I said.

As she scooped the gooey greasy stuff into a little plastic bag I thought, my goodness, that’s awfully white butter.

Karen and I were in the motokar on our way back to Km 38 as I pulled out my pocket dictionary.

Manteca: fat.

I had just purchased half a kilo of lard. Oh my word. Karen and I laughed and laughed. We tried to come up with a use for lard all the way home, like for greasing up hinges or something, but in the end we just through it out.