BIRD TALES: PEPE THE PARROT
BIRD TALES: PEPE THE PAROT
- Eat Pepe, eat, go, put the corn in the crop!
My grandmother Luisa shouted at a plucked animal, with a disproportionate head, a long neck and open legs as if It had polio.
It was a parrot pigeon that my brother had found in his nest on the bank of the river Guaso.
Grandmother would stuff him with her own lips ground corn and sips of water that the bird sipped or pecked slowly.
This is how the parrots or parakeets are raised when they are in their pigeon stage. Ugly and with only a thin white skin covered with little down, it looked like a creature from another planet.
Then Grandma would lock him in a wire cage near the coals in the kitchen and wrap him in a cloth so he would think it was his mother who was snuggling him up.
I do not know why all the parrots or parrots call them Pepe, is that they are descendants of the same genre, I thought.
The budgie was growing thanks to the ground corn that was provided by my grandmother and later pieces of fruit that she broke down in his beak with his own hands.
On Sundays we went to see granma and to bathe in the river Guaso.
"Grandma, how's Pepe?" We shouted as we put on the Chores to bathe.
- Look at it right there, growing and the feathers are already coming out.
Pepe was fowling with nice green and blue colors and he was staring at us.
-Grandmother! Grandmother! - repeated the parakeet in his first words in Spanish. I thought I would speak in another language someday.
-Louise! Bread! Bread!
And my poor grandmother ran to give him a piece of bread because if she did not purr and purr the name of Grandmother until he received his ration.
Everything was going well until my cousin Cucho came down from the mountains and stayed for a few days at her grandmother's house. He took Pepe to the backyard and there he seems to teach him a new language by bribing him with pieces of cookies.
From then on, when grandmother received visitors, Pepe would sit still for a moment until he could identify the visitor's sex:
-Bitch! Bitch! Give me gallleeeeta.
And if it was a man, he would squawk:
-Fagot! Fagot!
Embarrassing grandmother Luisa quickly. This decided to get rid of the bird that was almost adult and released it among the trees that surrounded the River Guaso.
But in the mornings a claw-like sound in the window announced the presence of Pepe the parakeet:
-Luisa, whore, bread for the parrot! Bread for the parrot!
And so I got what I was looking for. My patient grandmother said that it would pass until the time of heat arrived.
And so it happened. One day Pepe was no more. Maybe he emigrated to friendlier areas or found his better half. We did not know if it was male or female.
DR ORLANDO VICENTE ALVAREZ
CUBAN URUGUAYAN
GENIUS
- Eat Pepe, eat, go, put the corn in the crop!
My grandmother Luisa shouted at a plucked animal, with a disproportionate head, a long neck and open legs as if It had polio.
It was a parrot pigeon that my brother had found in his nest on the bank of the river Guaso.
Grandmother would stuff him with her own lips ground corn and sips of water that the bird sipped or pecked slowly.
This is how the parrots or parakeets are raised when they are in their pigeon stage. Ugly and with only a thin white skin covered with little down, it looked like a creature from another planet.
Then Grandma would lock him in a wire cage near the coals in the kitchen and wrap him in a cloth so he would think it was his mother who was snuggling him up.
I do not know why all the parrots or parrots call them Pepe, is that they are descendants of the same genre, I thought.
The budgie was growing thanks to the ground corn that was provided by my grandmother and later pieces of fruit that she broke down in his beak with his own hands.
On Sundays we went to see granma and to bathe in the river Guaso.
"Grandma, how's Pepe?" We shouted as we put on the Chores to bathe.
- Look at it right there, growing and the feathers are already coming out.
Pepe was fowling with nice green and blue colors and he was staring at us.
-Grandmother! Grandmother! - repeated the parakeet in his first words in Spanish. I thought I would speak in another language someday.
-Louise! Bread! Bread!
And my poor grandmother ran to give him a piece of bread because if she did not purr and purr the name of Grandmother until he received his ration.
Everything was going well until my cousin Cucho came down from the mountains and stayed for a few days at her grandmother's house. He took Pepe to the backyard and there he seems to teach him a new language by bribing him with pieces of cookies.
From then on, when grandmother received visitors, Pepe would sit still for a moment until he could identify the visitor's sex:
-Bitch! Bitch! Give me gallleeeeta.
And if it was a man, he would squawk:
-Fagot! Fagot!
Embarrassing grandmother Luisa quickly. This decided to get rid of the bird that was almost adult and released it among the trees that surrounded the River Guaso.
But in the mornings a claw-like sound in the window announced the presence of Pepe the parakeet:
-Luisa, whore, bread for the parrot! Bread for the parrot!
And so I got what I was looking for. My patient grandmother said that it would pass until the time of heat arrived.
And so it happened. One day Pepe was no more. Maybe he emigrated to friendlier areas or found his better half. We did not know if it was male or female.
DR ORLANDO VICENTE ALVAREZ
CUBAN URUGUAYAN
GENIUS
