We Had A Party...And People Came!!
25th May, 2000
Written by Helen James
The tower guys thought they would be here for at least 2-3 weeks but their eagerness to leave this country got the better of them and they finished the job in about a week!
They planned to leave on the Monday and so Mark decided to have a party for them on the Sunday...here at OUR house!
He came home all excited on the Friday night and laid out the plans to me. He wanted to do a pig (of course) but not the way it was done before! I told him I wanted nothing here that bleeds!! He said that they would use one of the big steel grates from the old tower steps and it would make a great bbq! 2 of the workers came by that night and we gave them some money to go hunt for a pig! They calculated the time that it would take to find a pig and kill it and drain it (all the yucky stuff I didn't need to know) and they would come by on Sunday morning ready to cook it.
I made a list of things we needed for this party..using OUR standards..and a list of what salads etc I would make. We were determined that it would be a civilised bbq where everyone sat down AT A TABLE and didn't just rip of chunks of meat and eat it standing up!
I borrowed a nice long table from our housekeeper across the road and some of those fine plastic coloured chairs. She even gave me a lovely white tablecloth to put on it. We had a list of 20 invited guests...all work related. How we ended up with 35 is beyond me..but knowing someone who is at a party is enough for Venezuelans to invite themselves it seems.
We went shopping on the Saturday and bought everything that we needed. We bought pretty bbq plates and wanted to get proper silverware (cutlery in Australian). It worked out too expensive for that and so we opted for plastic cutlery. We found knives and we found spoons...but do you think we could find forks?? We couldn't find metal forks OR plastic forks! I have never seen a store that has racks of plastic cutlery..but no forks!
What do these people eat with?? That might explain why they eat standing up with their hands..but no way was I going to have a party like that! We found some packets of small cocktail forks which we were forced to buy..how they would pick up a heavy piece of pork we didn't know..but we had no choice. We ended up finding some packs of plastic forks in our local general store! They've probably been there since 1985 from the dust on them...but what the heck..we had forks!!
I wasn't planning anything flash, but I thought to at least have a potato salad, coleslaw and tossed salad would be nice. Mark wanted devilled eggs because they are a national US staple food and I had my debut attempt at making those. Dessert would just be a fresh tropical fruit salad. I bought munchy things like salsa dip and corn chips and olives and salami and cheese..you know, normal stuff we have at a party when you have to wait a long time for the real food. The pig was thrown on the bbq at around 10am and wouldn't be ready until about 5pm and we knew that people would be arriving as early as possible if they knew someone else was paying for the beer and food! They started to arrive around noon!
Enrique and Victor were the chief cooks and we left the pig up to them. It's quite an art preparing a pig which you will see from the pics. We had an enormous plastic tub filled with ice for the beer. 17 cases of beer (24 in each) were consumed here that day..17!!!! We could hardly believe it. I think about 4 runs were made to the liquoria during the course of the party!
Ok..normal people were arriving..and some of course that we didn't invite. We had no idea who they were, but the party was in our driveway and that was reason enough for half the town to stop in and grab a beer.
Serving them munchies during the course of the afternoon was also something new to them obviously..a real extravagance!
We took the 3 Americans down to our beach for an afternoon swim to kill some time while the pig sizzled. Once they got there they just wanted to consume more beer and not swim..so after an hour of that we returned home to see what damage had been caused by leaving all these strange people alone at our house.
Our landlady was probably worried about us having a party and invited herself to stay all day and all night! The pig was finally ready and Enrique (in true Venezuelan style) just piled the meat on a tray and put the tray on the table.
Of course the hordes of hungry Ven's dived for this tray. Mark was furious! He jumped in front of the tray and shouted for everyone to get back!! Like a musketeer..fork in hand..he lashed out at anyone that tried to touch that meat before I had laid the tablecloth! By gum..I had salads and plates and a tablecloth and they were going to have to wait until I had set that table properly!!
They all sat back in their chairs in fear while I calmly brought everything out. A lot of ooh's and aah's could be heard..and once I was convinced everything was done..I stood back and said...EAT!!!!
I've never seen food devoured so fast in my life. It was like a bunch of piranhas had converged on a piece of flesh and left just the bone! When I finally went to get a plate..there were 5 pieces of potato salad left...about 2 lettuce leaves...a spoon full of coleslaw..3 bits of garlic bread...sheesh. Mark didn't get anything. He managed to get a piece of meat at one point..but no salads.
The party ended about 9pm and everyone was full of booze and food. It was rated a huge success by our 'guests'...even the non guests. My house was a mess but it didn't matter. They had finally had a taste of how we 'gringos' do things and that made us and them very happy. The concensus now is to have more of these on a regular basis..BUT..that everyone bring a plate of something next time! Yeah..right!! We'll see!
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