It's easy to take literacy for granted...until you move to a foreign country. When I moved here, I heard all sorts of funny stories about learning to live as a foreigner. My friends have bought green tea toothpaste, thinking the leaf on the packaging was a mint leaf. I've also bought Chinese medicine flavored gum thinking it was spearmint...boy was I shocked when I started chewing my gum! I've avoided a lot of mistakes by running my purchases by my literate husband. I am so thankful he's literate...otherwise I'm not sure how I would survive. But now that we have Noah, we don't go out together as much since one of us is usually at home watching him.
A couple days ago, I picked up some random things at the grocery store. Today, I excitedly showed Richard one of my purchases. Good brown sugar is hard to come by where we live, and I was excited about a new brand I saw since it looked moist, like American brown sugar. But as soon as I showed Richard what I bought, I knew from his expression that it was bad news. He reviewed the list of ingredients and while it was indeed brown sugar, it also has black pepper and red date mixed in with it. Yum! Apparently, it's advertised to be good for older women's health...though I have no idea why. Maybe I'll give it away to somebody I know...but then will she think I'm saying she's old?