The Ham Sandwich.

The day before Luciano arrived me and his mother dropped his daughter off at ballet and then went down the street to have a "lanche" which is a Brasilian panini more or less. So I tell Luciano´s mom to order me a sandwich with no meat. And she blabs away and says "Oh do you want 'presunto'. I ask her if it´s meat (in correct portuguese) and she says no. So I say ok and we go sit down. When we get our order my sandwich contains something that, to me, looks exactly like ham. I say to her "oh I think this has meat in it" and she says that no, it doesn´t it´s "presunto". Coming from Japan where the word "meat" only entails beef, I decide that maybe the same applies here so I expand my statement to say "ah donna Herminia, is there any ANIMAL in this sandwich" (Which I also say in perfect portuguese). She again says, no no no Joe, presunto is not made from animals. Luciano had told me that there are a lot of tofu products here so I just figured that that must be what´s in the sandwich so after check SEVERAL times and rephrasing the questions in many different ways, Donna Herminia assured me that no animals were harmed in the making of my sandwich so, I ate it.

Upon returning to my hotel I checked for a translation of this mysterious "presunto" only to find that it was indeed HAM! 100% meat derived HAM. The next day I had a talk with his mom about presunto and seriously she had NO idea that ham came from animals!! She even asked Luciano´s brother where it came from. So I guess we both learned a lesson from the sandwich. I learned that if it looks like meat and it smells like meat, no matter what anyone says, DON´T eat it. And she learned that ham does in fact come from animals.


Anyway,

I have emerged from the jungle, if only for a moment.

I have been attacked by crazy Brasilian bitting flies that have turned my legs into something off "Survivor" and have finally started to get a bit of a suntan.

I´m heading back into the darkness soon so prepare yourselves for lack of updates.

Tomorrow is my birthday. Me and the bitting flies are gonna have a party.

Cheers
J