heads or tails? quick funny story about this weekend past and i have to run. just had my first class (level 5) and they rock. they all speak english really well, so that should be awesome. there are only three teachers, the fourth bailed on friday. cuba, you lose the bet. so do i. damn. the boss seems to think she will find someone in two weeks. right. heard that before.

ok, so one of the things that has creeped me out a bit is that sometimes i will walk down the street and see a cow skull completely picked clean. given that there are about 50 wild dogs in each town, the fact that they are picked completely clean is not extremely surprising, but i have no experience with cow head in general, so it is still disturbing.

this past saturday i went to juchitan with jorge chico (little george) and jorge de jungla (george of the jungle, clearly these are my names for them, and they are taking to them slowly considering chico is 35 and the jungle is 42 years old) and francisco. so we are shopping for house stuff for them and a guayabera for me and chico. hours into the day they all want some food. deciding on places to eat with these guys is like gettting a nascar fan away from the t.v. on sunday: impossible. we are all cheap as hell and know very little about the area so we walk back and forth, back and forth. finally, they decide on a little vendor on the street selling tacos (soft tortillas with meat, salsa, lettuce, onions) for about 5 pesos each ; overall a sweet deal.

i am more hot than hungry (by the way the average temp down here is still about 100 or so during the day), so i sit in the plastic chairs as an observer. they chat/harass the women vendors (think little white stand selling hot dogs and the like in the states) over price, size, etc and then settle in to wait four minutes for the food.

i look up and notice a cow head in the display of the food stand. then i notice that half of the skull is showing with about half of the meat in jagged brown pieces loosely clinging to the non-exposed portion of the skull. i am immediately very happy i ordered nothing because i have the urge to wrech, heave, whatever. the guys notice my change in color of bright red to pale and ask what´s up. i explain that there is a head in the display. they non-chalantly explain that head is good, so is tounge, stomach, etc.

i vehemently disagree and declare that eating the head (cabeza) is super gross and i would never try it.

a smile crosses their faces.

i don´t like that smile because it is accompanied by a queer silence.

what? what the hell is going on, why does my statement that head is gross seem so funny to them?

will, you just ate head last night at the taco stand at 2am after the bar. NOOOOOOOOOO. no way, impossible, utterly inconceivable (¨i don´t think you know what that word means¨ princess bride).

but oh, yes, it is more than conceivable, it happened. i ate cow head. more importantly, i ate 3 cow head tacos, and, of my accord, ordered three more.

needless to say, the jorges and francisco cannot conceal, and are making no effort to dissemble and hide, their mirth over the fact that i have unwittingly made myself sick.

two days later, i still cannot get the sight of that half eaten skull out of mind. most of the head has left my body by this point, but i am still grossed out. i also ate iguana the other day. didn´t know it, but i did it. jésus. i also now eat avacados, onions to some extent, tomatoes to some extent (though i still do not like the last two) and plenty of other food which i never would have touched in states.

heads or tails. clearly, heads. (anyone remember Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (sp?) Are Dead? ya, now i do.)

so think on that for a spell gringos. in the words of george of the jungle, ¨what do you think they do with the heads in the u.s.a?¨ ¨throw them away¨ i quickly retorted. ¨not mcdonald´s, burger king, etc.¨he responded. it raises a good question. where do the heads go? ground beef. why have i never thought of this before?

heads.