The Inevitable

If you've paid much attention to my postings lately, they're beginning to sound like they belong on the food network, or maybe Bizarre Foods on the Discovery channel. Common sense would then say you could have predicted this post.

First of all, I need to clarify one thing. Upon further discussion with our cook, Tia Rosi, I have been informed that charqui, or at least her charqui was NOT horse meat after all. There you have it! I can still admire my Black Beauty VHS without her screaming, "Hypocrite!"

Second of all, regardless of whether I gnawed on Mister Ed's thigh or not, this whole eating organs thing has led to the inevitable. Last night I was awake until 5am tossing and turning with a wrenching stomach ache. As is natural, I thought, "Hmm... What did I eat?" I stopped the thinking right there. There really wasn't an "Ah hah!" moment at all--more like an "Ah crap..." moment.

It could have been the chicken heart churrasco I ate a couple nights ago. Or maybe the gristly chunks of beef and sausage on a churrasco stick that seemed a tad bit undercooked. Hmm... I did eat some stomach with beans and rice the other day (NOT recommended, although it's a local favorite). Beef liver? Maybe. Then again, it could have been the tripinha do porco (fried pork intestines) we ate at a an outdoor venue a few days ago. You know, it could have been the sausage with chunks of fat in it I fried and put in spaghetti sauce. And if it wasn't any of those, maybe it's because I tend to wash my vegetables in the same tap water that tends to smell like sewage now and then in my bathroom. Yeah, maybe it's one of those.

The scary part is that the stomach feeling and loss of appetite resemble what I came home with from Honduras about 2 years ago. That lasted almost 3 weeks until it finally cleared up a few days into my classes starting again.

Despite the diarrhea... Oh, too much information? I think we're headed to a bar tonight to watch a futebol ("soccer" for us United Statesians). Bars here are definitely different from bars in the US. The word "bar" is used for almost any place that serves beer. And since literally every business, gas station, street vendor, and restaurants sells beer, they seem to be everywhere. The atmosphere is a little different, though. We don't stand or sit at a bar stool like we would in lots of places in the US. Instead, we grab a table and start the conversation. In the US, I feel like the bar experience is a condiment for inebriation, while here the bar experience is the experience and inebriation depends on how long the conversation goes.

Some side notes...

I bought some cookies and a soda at the gas station today. The lady asked if I wanted a bag. After a few times saying "Oi?" (same as "Huh?"), I told her in my toddler-level Portuguese that I would actually like a bag. Then she asked if I wanted a straw... Oh jeez.

I walked to the beach today and just roamed around. I saw a guy fishing and a super-high man drawing a 30ft x 30ft map of the world. It wasn't a good map. His scale was completely off. He needed a cartographer's tool and less marijuana. And the US was labeled (translated to English) "The United States of Nuclear Bombs and Biological Weapons"--roughly. There were also rough sketches of police boats, helicopters, and laptops west of Australia. I tried talking to him and then pretended I knew what he was telling me until I finally walked home.

The exchange rate for the Brazilian Real (Brazil's currency) has gone down substantially. I checked again today and saw it dropped about 5 centavos since I've been here! In only 15 days! The graph below shows the exchange over the last 10 years. When the line is low, it's bad for me. When it's high, it's good for me. As you can see, I'm traveling in the wrong year.

I'll write more very soon. Thanks to all who have been reading!