For lunch today in Montevideo, Joel – unknowingly – ate a pigeon.

Ordering off the meat (carne) menu, he ordered a dish in Spanish that included the word ‘paloma’. It came with onions, mushrooms & fries – and he thought it might be a type of beef. When it came out – little cuts of stringy, oily white meat – we suspected duck, or even a type of pork. I tried a bit, and it wasn’t that nice, but hunger made him gobble it down.

After we paid the bill, Joel was looking through our translation book in Spanish, and stopped dead in his tracks.

“Alli. You won’t guess what I just ate,” Joel hissed at me, his eyes darting towards the grey birds pecking all over the footpath in front in front of us.

“Not…pigeon?!”

He nods slowly. The pigeons on the footpath look up at him, glaring. My…