Grocery Shopping Without Language Skills

So, I thought I'd give you a little taste of something that happens every week for me. Grocery shopping with little to no language skills.... so here it is: the raw, uncut version of this weekly necessity. (All of what proceeds is entirely true.)

GETTING READY TO GO TO THE GROCERY STORE
I prepare my list carefully, looking at packages if I need to write anything down (brand names, sizes, etc.). Once my list is made, I make sure I have plenty of money. I don't -- I repeat DON'T -- want to get up to the counter without enough money. That would spell disaster.

Head out the door, certain to grab the pull cart for groceries and all four of our durable cloth bags for bringing our groceries home in the taxi. Usually, I have one or two of the kids in tow as well. For this example, we'll just say I brought Baxter and Maranatha with me, as has been the case while Doug & Ethan have been gone. With that in mind, I better run back inside the apartment and grab a snack or two and grab at least one water bottle. Oh, and "Baxter, you need to go potty before we leave." "I know you just went (2 hours ago), but you need to go ahead and try again now. Yes, ma'am?" "Yes, ma'am."

GETTING TO THE GROCERY STORE
Once we make it out our door, down the stairs, and out of our apartment complex to the taxi stand, I tell the taxi driver the name of the mall that the grocery store is located inside of. He looks at me strangely, because I didn't say it right, but he knows precisely where I'm talking about. We take off. Darting past the sheep salesman, the elderly pedestrians, and narrowly missing the small bus headed in the opposite direction, he honks at will.

We enter the parking lot, only to notice that they're doing *more* construction on this particular lot. He rolls down his window to get instructions on where to park (as he'll wait for another mall patron just outside the mall). I look in my wallet and realize, askance, that the smallest bill I've got is a 50 YTL bill, which is equivalent to $40 US. When I offer it to him, he throws his hands up in the air and, frustrated, mutters something, and goes to the back of the taxi to get my shopping cart out of the trunk for me. He keeps saying something in Turkish. "Pardon, Turkce bilmiyorum," I say, many times, which means, "I'm sorry, I don't speak Turkish." He keeps repeating the phrase. Finally he throws in a hand gesture, somewhat pointing in the direction of home. I ask, hesitantly in English, "oh, I...(point to myself)... give you money... (gesture as though I'm handing him money) at the taxi stand (a point in the same direction he pointed) later?" He nods and waves me off. Good riddance, he's probably thinking.

I feel terrible. But there are two children to deal with and a grocery list to be crossed off, so I plod on. We walk into the mall, where we go through a baggage check and x-ray machine, and Baxter smiles up at the "policeman" (aka, security guard woman) who totally isn't even concerned with the baggage screening any more, and smiles back at him.

We go over to where the carts are, and realize that the only carts that are at the back of the rows are ones without child seats. But I need one with a child seat in it, so I walk over to the cart attendant. I motion that I need a seat. He eventually gets what I'm talking about, asks me something in Turkish, and I catch something about "one", so I pull out a 1 YTL coin, hoping that's what he's asking for. Yes, it is. He takes it, and puts it into the back of a cart in the middle of a row, and dislodges it from all the others. (Yes, you have to pay a deposit for your shopping cart, and yes, they are all connected, so you can't just pull out the one you want. You have to pull from the back.) I tell him "thank you", and we're on our way.

SHOPPING
We enter the store, and I pull off to the side and pull out the bag of pretzels that I brought for a snack for the kids. "Baxter, here are the pretzels; you'll need to share with Mei-Mei. Please give her one after each one you eat. And here's a water bottle if you get thirsty. Now sit down on your bottom. Thank you."

And we're off! I skip the housewares section, and go for the food. The promotion aisle, which usually has lots of American products, has been taken over by spices and Turkish teen girls in green uniforms and funny, quirky little matching shoes, all of which are emblazoned with "Knorr", the brand of choice for spices and bouillon here in Turkey. They have a booth. They talk to every other shopper, but one look at my face, and they don't even bother. They know what I know: my Turkish isn't good enough to talk about spices and why Knorr is the best.

As I'm buying things I need, I try to limit the weight of what I'm buying. I normally like to buy in bulk, but having to carry heavy things over my shoulders after each trip to the grocery store has taught me to buy for need, rather than for "stocking up" purposes. (Not to mention that a very well-stocked kitchen was left for medical reasons last year, and I'm trying to learn my lesson.)

Sometimes I have to stop and try to discern any level of familiarity on a package, but at this point, 2 months into living here, I pretty much know what I need. I might buy a different brand of sugar, flour, or cookies, to try something new, but I know where things are (for the most part), and shopping itself isn't that difficult. Baxter is still faithfully handing Maranatha her pretzels (and her water cup if she gets thirsty), and I regularly tell him what a good job he's doing. "I a good helper, momma," he says. "Yes, you are!"

I should note here that a normal trip to the store, in a normal week, when the other two members of our family are here and I'm cooking for 5 rather than for 3, my cart ends up quite full. Which isn't strange to you. Because you're an American. But to these people, just as it was before when we lived overseas, a cart as full as ours just isn't seen very often at all. They buy enough for a few days and then come back. I don't want to do that. It costs me nearly $10, roundtrip, in taxi rides to go grocery shopping. I don't want to make that trip twice in a week. So I load up and buy a lot. We buy several packs of meat (chicken, beef, and chicken tenders, maybe). We buy several bags of pasta. We get a few snacks for the kids, and then I usually need at least some of the staples: sugar, flour, baking items, spices, oils, etc.

Then on to dairy... I get several varieties of cheeses, none of which are particularly like anything we think of as cheese, but some of which will suffice when mixed into a casserole or pasta dish. Their main cheese is a white cheese, kind of like provolone, only much less flavor. So it's a basic, almost flavorless, but sometimes bitter, and quite expensive alternative to the cheeses we're used to, but I'm willing to pay it, as it provides protein and thickens the sauces and casseroles that I make.

I buy yogurt (think of how big an American "cheese" section typically is. Double that, and that's how much space they give to yogurt- it's extremely popular here) and milk, which is unrefrigerated on shelves. They have more brand names of milk than you can imagine. It is long-life milk, which we've gotten used to, and so I buy several jugs of that (they only come in 1 liter or smaller containers, which is like one-fourth of a gallon). They come in thick plastic containers, so it's very heavy and cumbersome to even get the equivalent of one gallon. We actually don't drink that much milk now that we live overseas, but between cooking and cereals, it gets used up fairly quickly. So I get what we need and prepare myself for the checking out process.

CHECKING OUT
I wait in a long line. The belt where the groceries should be put is small, and so I have to wait until the person in front of me is almost ready to pay before I can begin unloading my cart. The clerk just starts right in scanning the groceries, and the LCD screen is never turned out, to where the customer can see. So I would have to be done unloading my cart and down where I could see the computer screen in order to tell if the prices are ringing up as advertised. Baxter helps hand me things from the cart ("what a little helper you are!"), and I finish as quickly as I can.

So now, you might be thinking, I can go and check up on prices, at least for the last half of my groceries purchase, right? But you would be wrong.

No, this is a bag-your-own groceries place. And because he's already halfway through my load, I am already halfway behind. I open up my grocery cart and begin loading the heaviest things (like the milk jugs) into the cart, since I can roll it behind me. Then I begin loading in all of the other groceries into my cloth bags. They do have plastic bags, but I use cloth bags for environmental and practical reasons. My fingers like to have circulation, which would not happen if I had a gazillion plastic bags hanging off of my hands while trying to pull the shopping cart and carry Maranatha. So I use my cloth bags, which I can sling over my shoulder much more easily.

I'm only halfway through bagging my groceries when I realize that the clerk just said something to me. I look up and realize that he's finished and ready for me to pay, and the people behind me (in any given shopping trip) are either (a) completely frustrated that they decided to get behind ME of all people, or (b) making googly eyes at my two American children. Thankfully this time, it's the latter.

I pay the money, which, even though I really cut back this week (cooking for 3 people, not "stocking up", etc.), I still spent over $100. "How did I even do that?!," I wonder. Well, no time for dwelling on that... I've got to bag up all of the rest of my groceries. That's right... the clerk won't lift a finger, even seeing my two little ones and how completely behind I am on bagging.

So I hurry up, throwing things into bags as quickly as possible while telling Baxter, "please don't push the cart over there... mommy needs to put these bags into it." Finally, I finish, just before the next customer in line (that's right, the person 2 people behind me in line) starts getting their items scanned.

GOING HOME
We whiz away, thrilled that we got out of the store so quickly and easily. Compared to previous trips, this shopping trip was a breeze! Thank you, Lord!

I get out to the taxi stand, with my full cart and two kids who are VERY ready for lunch at this point, and the taxi attendant begins unloading my cart. Baxter climbs into the back of the taxi, and I stand outside to make sure all my groceries make it into the trunk, placing fragile items like eggs and bread in the cab, to be held between me and Baxter. I notice, just as they're pulling my fully-loaded rolling cart out of the basket, that the tuna fish I had finally decided to buy this trip (I had delayed purchasing tuna for 2 months, because of how expensive it is-- $5 for 2 small cans!!!) had slid under the rolling cart and I hadn't paid for it. ACK!

While quickly debating myself, I realize several things:

1. My language skills are not anywhere NEAR where they would need to be to explain that I didn't pay for the tuna fish, but did not mean to steal it
2. Even if I could somehow manage to communicate what I needed to to the customer service representative, my son and all of my groceries are now loaded up into a taxi that is WAITING ON ME to quit debating myself and get inside, please.
3. I can call my friends who have been here longer and get one of them to write a note explaining the situation so that I can take it with me the next time I go shopping and pay for the tuna.

I settle on that last point, and get inside the taxi. We make it to the front door of our apartment building, and the taxi driver unloads my groceries while I get the right amount of money to pay for the taxi fare. Once we're all unloaded, I load up with as many bags as I can handle (three cloth bags) while still wrangling Maranatha in one arm. Baxter waits at the base of the stairs with the rolling cart and the remaining cloth bag, smiling at me nervously, even though he knows the gig and knows I really will be right back. We live on the first floor, so I run inside, drop my bags, and carry Maranatha back outside with me to get the rest.

Oh, praise the Lord- just as I'm loading up like a packhorse for the second round, a man walks up and offers to hoist up my rolling cart and carry it up the flight of stairs for me. Baxter runs up, I open up the door, and thank the man profusely. We get inside and I begin unloading groceries, placing the tuna fish can prominently at eye-level on the shelf over the sink, to remind me to get my friends to write that note so that I can pay for it at the next visit. And I stick a 10 YTL bill near the front door, so that I'll remember to pay the taxi driver (from the first ride) the next time we head out to go somewhere. Ah, life is good. I did all my shopping in less than two hours total.

But then it hits me, uh-oh- I needed to order water bottles to be delivered (think Ozarka, only these are not optional- it's necessary in order to have drinking water here)... and I have to do that in person at the shop nearby... "Baxter, buddy, better get your shoes back on..."


~written by Jess, who would testify in a court of law that all of this really happened last Thursday when she went shopping.