αναλφάβητος

When we prepared to come to Cyprus, I was told that almost everyone spoke English and that learning Greek wouldn't be a requirement (we were/are still planning on learning Greek). Well...what we have found so far is that there are lots of people that speak English, but it usually isn't the Cypriots. The majority of Cypriots that we have come in contact with don't speak English, or if they do, it is pretty limited. It probably doesn't help that that we speak American English and not British English. While there are some general signs in English that make it helpful, the details are not in English.

One area that this is difficult is grocery shopping. On top of the high prices and the exchange rate, I find myself struggling to know WHAT I am buying. I walk out mentally exhausted. I find myself staring at rows of can milk trying to figure out which is evaporated (our current substitute for half and half) and which is condensed. It didn't help that in Lidl (a German chain like Aldi) the evaporated milk was called condensed in English. The other day Joshua picked up some ice cream. As we took a bite, we quickly found out that “Kaimaki” isn't vanilla. The flavor wasn't anything our taste buds were expecting. I looked it up online and found it was either ground orchid root or clotted cream from water buffaloes or goats -think feta cheese ice cream. Sufficient to say I find grocery shopping challenging. And it hit me why - I am αναλφάβητος ... illiterate!