The 2023 Brazil Journals, Chapter Thirty-0ne

 

Chapter Thirty-One

Side Effects

 

 

“You have to taste a culture to understand it.”

—Deborah Cater

 

 

 

If you’ve been served a meal on an airliner, then you’ll understand what I’m talking about.  You are handed a teensy tray with all the food items placed just so and everything fits nicely.

 

Fits, that is, until you begin unwrapping and taking the lids off the individual servings.   Then there is no place on the postage stamp-sized tray to put all that debris.

 

So when I was on the long flight from Dallas-Fort Worth to Sáo Paulo, Brazil, I found myself with a serving of white rice in my left hand and another of cooked brown beans in my right hand.   There was only one empty spot on the tray.

Araras Eco Lodge

 

“Necessity is the mother of invention,” it’s said and in a moment of sheer genius, I dump the beans on top of the rice.   It's a good combination.

 

After a few days in Brazil, I discover I wasn’t such a smarty because rice with beans in a delicious, thick, soupy broth is a staple in the Brazilian diet.   Every lunch and dinner buffet always has a large container of rice and a large container of beans.

 

I indulged.   Frequently.

UFO

 

Well, you know what happens when you eat beans.   Eventually, they make their presence known in the form of gas, which is expelled from the body. 

That’s understandable, but does it have to trumpet its escape into the air so everyone knows you’ve been eating beans?

Our table in the lodge

 

I discovered that when I picked up my eight-pound camera/lens combination, I have to clench almost every muscle in my body to hold it up and focus without shaking.   Clenching those abdominal muscles results in that certain inevitable side effect.

I often found myself apologizing, excusing myself, or just ignoring it and hoping they think someone else did it.

 

I stopped eating rice and beans for a while but at Araras Eco Lodge, our last lodge on this trip, I had a very small serving.

 

***

 

 

Shelly comes to get me the next day and says she’s found an orange-backed troupial, a particularly colorful bird that I’d been hoping to see.   It isn’t far away and we maneuver under a large tree to catch the bird in an open spot through the leaves and branches.  Shelly is standing behind and off to one side of me.

 

I lift that heavy camera almost straight up and clench.

Juvenile wattled jacana

 

The bean gas emits a loooooong, high-pitched escaping squeal and Shelly starts laughing.   So do I.   Getting an in-focus shot under these circumstances is a miracle, but I get the shot.

Orange-backed troupial

 

We go back to our rooms and later I send Shelly a message:  

 

“I am thinking about changing the name of my blog to “The Phlatulent Photographer.”

 

 

Capybara, the rodents everybody loves.