Please just walk off and never look back.

Today I will continue talking to y'all about my trip to Brazil.  But before I do that, I know there are a couple of you who are not on Facebook and/or not in the Pie on the Face group page so you may not have seen this.  June Gardens (through Talu) posted the following and you may want to help out:

Momz friend charlee, the one who cant walk, is askeeng for people to take picture of self with "I heart you Charlie" or "I love you Charlie" or "Go Charlie" or whatever and send to him. He having bad time lately. If you want to do that, take picture and email to mom at byebyepieblog@gmail.com.

 I sent the following photo:

I told June to tell him I am sending him a kiss, not a duck face.  And I made it blurry on purpose so he would concentrate on the message and not my kiss that looks like a duck face.

And let's see how many different fonts and font sizes can be contained in one post.  It won't let me change the font on what I copied and pasted from June.

On to Brazil.

As I told y'all in my previous post about the trip, there is nothing tourist-y or fun to do in the city we were in (and I use the term "city" loosely).  There are some wealthy people (the government employees who are corrupt) but pretty much everyone else is very poor.  I saw no middle class to speak of.

We went to a farmer's market (and I know what some of the stuff is, but not everything so you probably should not ask me.  Especially the mystery liquids in the bottles and the bumpy green fruit.  HB told me people with cancer eat the bumpy green fruit a lot and it helps them.  But I don't know what it is other than bumpy green fruit):

This is HB on the left and his friend on the right is a preacher HB was working with a lot at the time:

Y'all, I am no raving beauty, but I kind of stood out in the middle of the Amazon jungle with my pasty white skin.  After the second day of us going around with the preacher, HB said, "He is getting on my nerves talking about you."  I asked what he meant and he said, "The first time he told me he finds you beautiful I was flattered.  The second time he said it I asked him to knock it off.  But now I'm pissed because he won't stop talking about how attractive he thinks you are."  I was just upset that I couldn't understand him when he was saying it.  I kid.  I was just different to him and I think that's what he found attractive.  Not many Americans come to their city.

In fact, the preacher is married and his wife is a nurse for the federal government down there.  She goes into the jungle and treats the tribes who live in the jungle rather than in civilization. They have two sons who were middle school aged at the time.  HB has known the preacher for 10 or 15 years, and we had to stop by their home late one morning for something.  HB and I sat out in front of their house while the preacher went inside.  As we were getting back in the car when he was ready to go again, his wife came running outside and yelled to HB.  Obviously I could not understand a word she was saying.  He told me that she was inviting us to eat lunch with them and asked if I was comfortable doing that.  I told him that sounded great to me - a homemade authentic Brazilian meal?  Yes, please.

He explained that we would need to go buy the groceries because they cannot afford much to eat and we would drop it back off, she would cook while we did some more work related stuff and then we'd go back to eat.

When we went back later to eat, the wife's sister was there helping her cook.  They have 4 people in their family and the house was three rooms:  one bedroom, a bathroom, and an L shaped room which consisted of a teeny tiny kitchen and a teeny tiny living room/dining room.  There was no sofa - only a dining room table and 4 chairs.  They had a couple of pillows on the floor.  They had HB, the preacher, the two sons and I sit at the table where they had made rice, beans, beef, salad, and fresh fruit juice.  Oh.  My.  Goodness.  It was one of the best meals I've ever put in my mouth.  The wife and her sister stood against the wall as we were about to eat.  I told HB to ask them to join us so he did.  They said the tradition in the Indian household is for the men and children to eat first and the women ate whatever was left.  Well, y'all can imagine how I felt about that.  He asked her if they would consider making an exception for one meal and they said they would but first they wanted to prepare a little more food for us, etc. so they never ate with us.  I felt very awkward eating with the men and boys and being the only female after knowing their tradition.

Once we finished, they took our plates, washed them, and then came to eat.  It turns out they couldn't eat with us because they did not have enough dishes for everyone.  It made me so sad and I felt awful for trying to get them to join us because I am spoiled and I assume people have enough plates.

After the wife and sister finished eating, HB said they wanted to know if it would be okay if some of their family came over to meet me because they had never seen an American in person before.  I said okay.

Before I knew it, there must have been almost 20 people packed into that tiny house standing in a circle staring at me, y'all!  OMG.  There were aunts, uncles, cousins, etc.  And they were all talking while they stared at me and I had no clue what they were saying.  HB was cracking up because he could tell I was so embarrassed.  He said they were amazed to see a "pink American" in their small, poor village.  I kept insisting that I am not pink.  But when I downloaded my photos later, I realized they were right.  It was so hot in the jungle that my face was hot pink the entire time.

As we got in the car to leave later, HB told me they were so honored that I would allow them to cook a meal for me and eat inside their home.  Then he told me that even though he had known them for 10 or 15 years, they had never invited him inside until I was with him.  He had always sat in a chair outside the front door.

Before we ate in their home, the preacher had told HB over and over that he wanted to take me into the jungle to meet a native tribe and I told him that sounded like an incredible experience.  HB kept making excuses not to do it because he didn't want to scare me.  While we were eating, the preacher told his wife he thought I should meet a tribe.  She quickly shook her head no and told HB that was a terrible idea.  She then had HB translate what would happen.  As I said before, she is a nurse who works with the tribes.  She would need to go to the Brazilian Air Force base and get permission to take me in.  She would then have to go in and seek permission from the chief.  Then she'd return to the Air Force Base where I would have to fill out a lot of documentation, leave copies of my ID, etc. so they knew who I was and she would then take me to meet the chief.  But after that, she would not be able to guarantee my safety.  She said if he liked me, he could decide to grab me and run off and take me as his sex slave, y'all!  And most of the time when they are done with you they kill you rather than release you.

No thank you.

And that is why I did not meet a tribe or Indian chief in the Amazon jungle.  I am not a fan of being a sex slave for an Amazonian Indian chief or dead.  Amen.

The food was TO DIE FOR every single meal I ate and HB said the jungle was not the best food in his country.  This was our complimentary breakfast every morning in our hotel.  No individual box of cereal and container of yogurt like American hotels:

 One night, HB said he wanted to take me to a place that had really good hamburgers.  But he couldn't remember exactly where it was and we drove up and down streets for a while until he finally found it.  We had only eaten a snack at lunch, then we had stopped by the hotel to take one of our 3 or 4 showers a day (because we sweated like crazy and would get stinky and need a shower) and by the time he found the place it was around 8:00.  He told me we would get one hamburger and split it.

"Split a hamburger?  I am starving!"

"Trust me, punkin.  They are big," he replied.

"I can't have my own hamburger?" I asked in a slightly pissed off tone of voice.  "I will pay for my own hamburger if you're just trying to save money or something."

He laughed.  "No, dahlink.  It has nothing to do with money.  They are big.  Let's split one and if you're still hungry we'll get another one.  But you won't be hungry."

Um.

He was right.  I hate when you have to admit a man is right.

This was ONE hamburger at this place cut into four pieces, y'all:

It was the size of a dinner plate.

How 'bout seeing a Brazilian pizza?  Because they are delicious.  It was dark outside when we were eating so these photos aren't too great.

Can y'all tell I'm writing this post when it's almost time for me to eat?  I'm hungry.

So when I wasn't eating delicious food, avoiding being taken as a sex slave, getting money converted by arms dealers, and being stared at by a group of villagers, I went around with HB while he worked.

We went to banks.  We went to government offices.  We went to a couple of newspapers.  HB used to work for the federal government and he does nothing illegally.  He would announce in the newspaper what he was going to do before he did it. 

And one night HB told me he needed to meet with the very corrupt police chief and a couple of his officers.  He said he would like for me to join him.

And he said he'd like me to pretend I understood everything they were talking about and pretend that I was an American attorney.

Um.

So we met with these people at a restaurant and the police chief was kind of an asshole.  Even though I don't know what he said.

While HB talked, from time to time he would pick up a newspaper and open it up, hold it in front of him and read so we couldn't even see his face.

I just sat there and looked back and forth as they each talked, nodded my head from time to time, sometimes I'd lean my head to the side and make a face like I was contemplating something that had just been said, etc.

But I'm not afraid to tell y'all I was slightly scared out of my mind.  I know HB would never have asked me to be there had he felt he was putting me in even the smallest iota of any danger whatsoever, but it was still very weird to sit at a table with your boyfriend, a couple of police officers, and a corrupt police chief in the middle of a city in the Amazon jungle while you have to pretend to be an attorney.  I'm not going to lie.

Anyway, other stuff happened - we went to parks, lakes, we took a trip to a very remote village, I saw things I'll never see again in my lifetime probably, but this post is getting too long to talk about them all in detail.

Eventually, my week in Brazil was over and it was time for me to head back home.  HB and I shared the first flight back to the place I had my layover each way and then he was continuing on to his hometown to go visit his family for a few days.  He did not have to get off the plane.  I cried for the entire two hours because I didn't want to leave.  As we were landing he looked at me and said, "Please do me a favor.  Try to stop crying.  Usually I'm the one leaving people behind when I'm going somewhere, but now you're leaving me and it feels awful.  If you don't stop crying I will start myself.  When you walk off this plane whatever you do, do not look back at me.  I will completely lose it.  Please just walk off and never look back.  I love you."

I didn't look back as much as I wanted to. 

I miss that man so much.