Lost in Translation

So I slipped up yesterday. Now, my house is connected to two businesses: 1) the comedor (small, home-grown restaurant), and 2) the coffee business. The living room, where we sit all the time, is connected to the comedor, in which case you can hear everything going on in there.

Background: One day in Spanish class we went over “Taboo Subjects,” which ended up being the various names for private parts! This in fact did come in handy during the HIV/AIDS charla, but at the time we thought our Spanish teacher was just expressing her “unique” methods of teaching us Spanish.

So, I was sitting in the living room with my host mom and my host sister. From the other room I hear one guy say, “Mira! Pan de mujer!” Now, in my Spanish class (as far as I was concerned!), “pan de mujer” is a euphemism (write word?) for a woman’s private parts (my grand-parents read this!). So, me thinking that he was being a typical Honduran man and thinking that no one could hear… I snickered. I also was proud of myself for remembering too.

Well, my host mom notices the snicker, and starts to laugh. Well, I think she’s laughing for the same reason I snickered. No. She then asks me what “pan de mujer” means, at which point I turn bright red, because how do you explain that in Spanish to your host mom (the only meaning you’re aware of)? Adding to the situation, I stammer out, “the capital!”

The night before, my host sister and host sister-in-law were asking me the English equivalents to “bad words” in Spanish. Well, my sister-in-law said, “the capital!” when I said we called the nether-regions, “vagina.” Yes, that was not smooth. Well, they all dissolve into chuckles, and politely explain to me that “pan de mujer” is actually what you call the little buns we eat with coffee. The bread is made by a woman, opposed to the bread you buy, which is mass produced in a factory. Literally “bread of (made by) women.” I DIDN”T KNOW! I even have a dirty mind in Spanish.

I then proceeded to explain that we only learned the slang translation in Peace Corps… it was a lost effort.