The Original Lucy and Ethel
*presses play…*
Camiri; a small town in the Eastern part of Bolivia, a very tropical beautiful place. Where the frogs were as big as dogs, the spiders were as big as little chickens and where the bats could compete with count dracula. But it was really a fun place to be a newlywed. A lot of young couples lived there as it was an oil camp and provided many jobs. My husband was a civil engineer and worked on the roads to the camp. There was a main kitchen that would supply food for all of the houses. When we were there we were sharing our house with another couple and we would order our dinners and lunches from what they called the social club. It was very nice and we didn’t have a lot to worry about. We would go out dancing at the Casino, and on Sundays they would have a little orchestra called “Prosperito and his Boys.” When we went out dancing or to different parties around the area we would pile Prosperito and his boys in the truck with us and take them from party to party. It was a lot of fun. There was an outdoor movie theater and we would go see movies at night, so there was a lot to do.
My friend and I, the one that lived with us, would do some of the baking. Our husbands would leave at 7 in the morning to go to work and we wouldn’t see them until probably two in the afternoon when they came home. They would come home and nap and then go back to work until probably 7 or 8 at night. So my friend and I would just hang out together, baking, playing cards… But once in a while somebody from work would ‘gift’ our husbands something as a thank you and one time they gave us a turkey, a LIVE turkey. It came in a cage and our husbands said “okay girls tomorrow we will have a dinner party and you cook the Turkey.” So they went off at 7:00 in the morning and there we are with this live Turkey.
I looked at her and said “how do we do this!?”. I had never killed a Turkey before or anything close. But I remembered that my mom would give them Aguardiente or some sort of other alcohol before the maid would kill them but I never saw the process. So we tried to get this turkey drunk first and just then my friend said “I know! I think we cut the tongue!”I had no idea!? So there we are terrified trying to hold this turkey and we start pulling and pulling the tongue. You can’t imagine how long a turkey’s tongue actually is. So we had the tongue and we were just about to cut it when thank goodness someone saw us. Across the street from us was an orchard and there worked the groundskeeper of all these properties, Senor Guzman. He saw us and immediately came to help. He took the turkey and cleaned it up and dressed it and got it ready for us to cook. It actually turned out pretty good but she and I could not look at each other for the rest of the evening. We can’t believe we almost cut out this poor drunken turkey’s tongue.
So many months went by and finally our house was finished and my friend and I got pregnant around the same time. We really could compete with Lucy and Ethel because that’s exactly how it felt. The guys brought home another “gift” around this time, a pig that they expected us to kill and cook. My friend turns to me and says “how about we drown it”.
So we got out these big buckets of water and the pig started running. So here we are with these big pregnant bellies chasing this pig around the yard. Here comes Guzman and just looks at us, shakes his head and takes the pig to prepare for us. So we had roast pig in the evening. I don’t think we will ever forget those moments. Even years later when I visited them and our kids were older and all grown up I asked her if she ever told them about the turkey or the pig and she said… “Oh no don’t you ever tell them!” I did tell my kids about it though because when I look back and see myself in these moments I think, ‘how could I have ever been so naive, so stupid, so young’... those are moments to share, learn from and laugh at.
