Amongst his colleagues, anyone different had been, of course, fair game, and Sandro was a perfect target due to his unusual country of origin and (at first) heavy accent (for Sandro, English proved to be the most difficult part of his coursework, especially the unfamiliar way it was spoken by the many Nordics). The only time he was spared the ribbing was when an actual woman briefly entered the program before dropping out (she was pregnant, and no one knew by whom, though rumors flew furiously and some of the guys had started placing bets). He recalled—though he no longer remembered at which Institute; or was it the Snow, Ice, and Permafrost committee?—all the gringo guys needling him: “Hey, I heard that in Costa Rica and those podunk places down there, you guys eat iguanas, man. Is that true?”
Another guy, also American, chimed in, “Yeah, dude, I heard that, like, the tail is supposed to be, like, the best part or some such totally gross thing, that y’all roast it till it’s all crunchy, then eat around the vertebrae like it’s a freakin’ corn on the cob!”
“No way,” replied Sandro instantly. “Not me, man. I mean, no one eats iguana where I come from,” he lied. “Maybe in Guatemala or something. Yuck! It sounds so disgusting!”
Eeet sounds so deeesgusting, they mimicked. “Oh, but ve all know,” one of them protested. “It is, how say you?, commoner knowledge. Ve all haf heard about it.”
“Well…” Sandro lied again. “Maybe in some total rural areas or something, some country people might eat it. But not anyone I know!” After that exchange, he was slapped on the back and invited out to drink hyper-chilled vodka. The subject was rarely brought up again, and he was eventually accepted as one of them, as a serious scientist of frozen phenomena, even if he did come from a land of butterflies and bananas.
