Does No always mean No? No, it doesn’t – when it means Yes.
This was a lesson I learnt the hard way as I again tried to navigate my way around a culture in which I can count the words I’ve managed to learn on well under two hands. Bulgaria uses the Cyrillic alphabet, which is a lot of very pretty shapes that look like a mixture of small houses and distorted ovaries, and I’m finding it something of a challenge.
All I can say is Thank you, Please, Wine, More Wine and most importantly, Yes and No. I can also say, thanks to the Irish bar, Penis and Blowjob. I have yet to be in a situation that requires saying Yes or No, along with Penis and Blowjob, but it’s early days.
You’d think that Yes and No would be the easiest, wouldn’t you? Not a bit of it. For I have just discovered that what comes out of my mouth bears no relation to the gestures I have used to accompany both words my entire life.
So, the meat counter at my local supermarket. I am largely vegetarian but find when my stress levels are high (they almost always are these days), I crave blood – less in a Count Dracula kind of way and more of a Hannibal Lecter. So, I suppose you could say it’s the flesh I crave in my mouth (and while we’re on that subject, it’s свирка (pronounced svirka – oh, come on, I know you were all dying to know).
Back to the meat counter. Gosh, they love their pork here. In the UK, I have a penchant for Richmond sausages, but can’t stand the smell or taste of bacon, and I’ve never liked gammon ever since Mum left some out for my brother and me when she was at work and failed to explain you had to cook it after opening the packet.
That was a chew and a half, I can tell you.
I have perfected my oink oink and moo moo noises at the counter and am already in training for my turkey gobbling (not of the svirka kind) impression in time for Christmas.
Yesterday, I wanted mince for my Bolognese sauce but there was only pork available. I did, however, find what looked like pre-packaged beef mince in the refrigerator section (you can forget trying to determine the meat’s origin from the pictures of the animals on the labels – they all look like mole-rats). I took it back to the meat counter to confirm I had moo moo and not oink oink.
‘Moo moo?’ I asked, in my best cow voice.
She shook her head from side to side.
I did the same. ‘Not moo moo?’
She shook her head again. Then put her thumb up.
‘So yes, it is beef I said, nodding my head.
She shook her head again.
Me: ‘Yes? Beef?’
Her: thumb up, now waving it like a cheerleader’s baton, desperate to get the message across.
So, there we both are, like those dog ornaments you see on car dashboards, heads locked in confusion as to whether they want to nod or shake their heads.
Finally, I twigged. I held up my thumb, joyously cried ‘Beef! Yes.’ All while shaking my head from side to side.
Here’s the thing: in Bulgaria, our No is their Yes, and vice versa.
A waiter later told me that in some areas of Bulgaria, the nodding and shaking I am used to is catching on, but where I am staying, it’s a nod for no and a shake for yes.
To be honest, it’s another stress I could do without. I started to worry about potential court scenarios in which a Brit might be up against a Bulgarian on the issue of consent. ‘She said yes,’ he might say, shaking his head from side to side, with the poor British woman making exactly the same head gesture, trying to explain that No means No, followed by the Bulgarian guy nodding confusedly and querying why No means Yes.
Sometimes, I worry I overthink things.
Anyway, it was enough to keep me awake until 7am (again – my insomnia is getting worse), in addition to worrying about the world, war, how Keir Starmer manages to keep his hair so perfectly groomed throughout this difficult time, how to spend my Tesco club points, whether I should sell the Omaze house or rent it out, whether Michael O’Leary is going to ban me from having a beer at the airport, whether the plane will crash anyway and it’ll all be irrelevant . . .
Then I nodded off.
Or did I?
Maybe I shook myself to sleep.
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