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We are waiting for the pig.
At 10 am, they tell us, there will be marranitos encebados: piglets, covered in grease, which children will try to catch in a contest.
What do they win if they catch it? Elena asks. The piglet, we answer. She is stunned. What will they do with it? Her awareness dawns as her question emerges. She decides to win to save the piglet.
10 am passes, then 11, then 12, then 3, and then 5, más tarde, más tarde, everyone says, and finally, mañana. Elena keeps asking: When will we see the pig? When will we see the pig? The next day, same: después de la misa. Then más tarde. Then después de la misa. We return to the central plaza again and again to ask the same question. We are just waiting for the pig, Elena complains.
We are waiting for the pig and 91-year-old Don Manuel, the patriarch, who has fainted and gone white and only come to after a nurse was called to the house to revive him, is eating the paleta I wouldn’t let Elena eat because the artificial coloring stained her tongue for a day.
We are waiting for the pig and getting bitten by tiny gnats who leave mean raised welts.
We are waiting for the pig and walking up the sun-blasted andador with paletas from the freezer of a corner Miscelánea.
We are waiting for the pig and taking a bucket bath, scooping the thin green bucket into the larger black bucket and finding sweet release from sweat and grit.
We are waiting for the pig and listening to the marimba band play “Dios Nunca Muere,” the singer asking us to please rise out of respect. Dime quien eres Díos mio, que tanto me haces sufrir. Tell me who you are my God, who makes me suffer so much, and the shadows of the kids playing tag flicker across the stone plaza.
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