Language Barriers At Their Best (old post from 2012)

Today after we got back from town, TheMan said he would go for the briquettes for the barbecue. I told him I thought they were called "Briquetta" because I had seen this printed on the side of the bag at the colmado by Rosa's place when we were there last. I remember these things!

So off he went to get briquettes for the barbecue! We were all drooling over barbecue chicken for supper!!! He walked to 3 different colmados between here and the Batay. He asked for charcoal and briquettes. No one had any idea what he wanted! He met Sarah, our landlady in the Batay visiting her mother. He tried explaining to Sarah that he needed charcoal briquettes for cooking. He made gestures of a fire underneath and cooking on top. Sarah indicated that she understood what he wanted. "Oh! Sy-chi-cha!" TheMan comes home and tells me of his adventure but now he knows that they aren't called briquetta but Sy-chi-cha. It's now getting late and Sarah told him there was none to be bought in our area, we would have to go to Puerto Plata for this. So I called Jose and told him in Spanish because I'm practicing "I need Sy-chi-cha for supper". Jose never questioned it and said "OK I can get you some on my way home from work"

In the mean time the chicken has been boiling in a brine. I have made the homemade barbecue sauce and everything is ready for the barbecue that is sitting on my step ready for making supper. The sweet potatoes are boiling in water, ready to be grilled on the barbecue and spritzed with lime and touch of salt while on the barbecue. Jose finally comes home. He drops off a bag from the supermarket that is very obviously NOT briquettes for the barbecue. It touches my leg and it's COLD! Definately NOT briquettes. I look in the bag and it is a huge package of 35 frozen hotdogs! Plan B it is! We went over to Jose's and used their outdoor kitchen and lit a fire. I put the rack from the barbecue over the cinder blocks that they have there to hold the pot. Supper was good but it wasn't barbecued! While we were eating I asked Jose what Charcoal briquettes are called in Spanish. He told us "Carbon".

After supper we went for our nightly walk to Pedro's colmado. We told him about the adventure TheMan had had. We asked him if he had Carbon and he exclaimed "Si!" He went and got a bag for us! When I asked how much he laughed and said it was "nada"! I think he felt bad that instead of briquettes for barbecuing we got 35 frozen hotdogs!