Breakfast in (South) America

By Bobby Neal Winters

A remix of Breakfast in America was coming over the sound system. I was feeling good about myself for knowing what a re-mix was, kinda.  And I am old enough to remember when Breakfast in America was new.  I knew about Supertramp because my friend from high school (I was going to say old friend, but she will always be 17 to me) Robyn Phillips listened to them.

Anyway, I was in the La Vienesa on Civil Legionnaires de Extranjero next to where it crosses De Las Palmeras and this remix of Breakfast in America was playing.  This was my first morning in Asuncion.  I’d slept like the dead after a long day of travel the day before.  

I’d woke up refreshed, took a shower, and headed to breakfast.  After examining the menu, I ordered the cheapest breakfast item they had: Vienesa.  I figured they’d named it after themselves, so they were probably proud of it.  It consisted of coffee, orange juice, two slices of toast from thin bread, a slice of ham lunchmeat, and a sandwich slice of swiss cheese.

That was it.

From many years of traveling to Paraguay, I know this to be a typical breakfast.  You will see eggs in other places, unexpected places, but not at breakfast, normally. Eggs are for frying and putting on top of a steak.  Cold cuts are for breakfast.

And that was fine.  I wanted only a light meal, and cold cuts did it.  

I then went out on my mission: Shopping.  My shopping trip was two-fold: get some groceries and buy a pill calendar.

The groceries were easy: fruit, potatoes, yogurt, meat, and beans.  I sort of looked for the pill calendar at the Superseis, but experience has taught me that in Paraguay groceries and groceries and medicine is medicine.  You can’t get so much as a bandaid at a grocery store, you need a pharmacy.

I went to a pharmacy in one of the malls near this particular Superseis.  The sales girl--and it was a girl as the population pyramid is properly shaped here--was very attentive.

At that point it occurred to me that I didn’t know the Spanish phrase for “pill calendar.”

This kind of thing has happened to me before, so I have a strategy.  Step one: try a naive direct translation.

“Quisiera un calendario de medicinas,” which is “I would like a medicine calendar.

She became very excited at the challenge and began to look through her files.  She then produced a pill-splitter.

I then took my other method.  Recreate my world for her.

“Todas las semanas yo pongo mis medicinas en domingo, lunes, martes, miércoles,...”  

That is to say, “Every week I put my medicines in Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday...”

I saw the light of understanding go on in her eyes.

“No tenemos.”  We don’t have it.

Of course not.  In Paraguay everyone is young.  If you are old enough to take so many medicines that they have to be laid out, you can find some other solution.

That’s what I am going to do.

I think I will make some black beans and rice for supper tonight and have some left over.  I might fry up my meat for lunch tomorrow.

But I may very well head back over to La Vienesa for breakfast on Sunday morning.  Nothing quite like ham lunchmeat and cheese for breakfast.

Take a jumbo, across the water//

Like to see America.

Bobby Winters, a native of Harden City, Oklahoma, blogs at redneckmath.blogspot.com and okieinexile.blogspot.com. He invites you to “like” the National Association of Lawn Mowers on Facebook. Search for him by name on YouTube.