Slaying a Donkey
Five guajiros crossed the road in front of us, each wielding machetes dripping fresh blood. It’s the kind of sight that instinctively makes you check the rear view mirror and consider swinging the Chinese-made Geely saloon into a sharp handbrake turn. On the grassy verge to their right was the sight of the massacre - a slimy pool of crimson blood and guts sparkling under the mid-morning sun.
Naturally I braked. Lafonda and I were on a secluded road on the northern side of the Gran Parque Natural Topes de Collantes en route to Trinidad. We’d hired a car the week before and had covered vast swathes of western Cuba. We’d just spent a couple of nights in Cienfuegos - the Pearl of the South - and had decided to mix up our journey to Trinidad by taking the unsealed back roads. A risky move given the lack of any roadside assistance.
But then again I am Carlitos de Jeffers. The first time I experienced an earthquake I didn’t run or hide. The tremors hit in the middle of the night and my instinct was to roll out of bed on to the floor and press my ear to the cool marble ground - I wanted to hear the quake coming.
Instinct took over now too. I pressed the accelerator again and pulled up alongside the guajiros who had now congregated in the knee-length grass. Their shirts marked with blood spatter, their faces lined with grease. If they had just murdered someone in cold blood they were acting cool about it.
“Que paso, amigo?” I said in an effortlessly authentic Cuban accent, addressing the oldest of the group. I pointed at the carnage behind him and smiled. As if to say, “even if you have just murdered a rival farmer I’m totally cool with it. When in Rome, etc”.
His grubby tan shirt was unbuttoned to the stomach and his sweat-stained chest heaved as he stared at the ground. He held the bloodied machete to his side. The sweet forest air - cooler here than in Cienfuegos on account of the trees and altitude - was thick with blood.
Lafonda lay a hand on the steering wheel and leaned over me to ask the man again. This time he answered [1]. Lafonda and I nodded and uh-huhed - as he windmilled the machete excitedly in the air, pointing at at the opposite side of the road, then back over the road to the fence where he whistled and gestured something flying. I understood everything but just to make sure Lafonda followed I asked her to tell me what she had understood the man to say. Sure enough I was correct.
It turns out the gory scene was the dismembered remains of a donkey which, only 30 minutes prior to our arrival, had broken its neck attempting to leap over the barbed-wire fence which separated the grassy verge from the forest beyond. Trapped on the barbed wire and unable to move, the guajiros discovered the crippled burro a short while after. [2]
Despite their villainous appearance the guijiros had dispatched the flailing donkey as an act of mercy - albeit using the ruthless skills they’d honed over a lifetime of eliminating rival farmers. [3]
The five men operated quickly. They’d already dismembered the mule by the time of our arrival and were now skinning the joints. Two mongrel dogs accompanying the farmers greedily lapped at pools of blood which formed on top of the scattered innards. Flies swarmed around as well. It was, said the old farmer, important for them to hurry with the butchering process before the meat spoiled.
I parked the Geely up a few metres ahead and we got out. With the engine now off the mountain slope was eerily quiet with not another vehicle in either direction. The farmers eyed us cautiously and didn’t like the look of the Nikon D600 slung over my shoulder. We assured them all we wanted to do was look because it’s not every day one comes across a donkey being slaughtered on the side of the road.
They had good reason to be suspicious. We assumed they would take the meat for themselves to eat (or sell to Aldi for use in their discount beef lasagnes), but we were wrong. The old guajiro explained the law: it was illegal for them to take the meat, even though they’d killed the donkey out of kindness. Instead, they had to take the meat into the nearest town and declare their find to the police. The police would then distribute it to the local hospitals. It being Cuba the farmers would no doubt take some for themselves anyway and so too would the police; the hospital staff would also take some, meaning any patients would be lucky if there was so much as a bone to suck the marrow out of by the time everyone had taken a cut.
Not that we doubted the farmers' honesty, it’s just that Cuba is hard and food is sparse.
The farmers hung the massive joints up on the barbed wire fence and then retreated to the grassy bank on the opposite side of the road in order to rest and bathe in the sunshine. One of them pulled out a hitherto hidden unlabelled rum bottle and unscrewed the metal cap - he took a few glugs from the clear contents then passed it around. Aguardiente, explained the el viejo. The harsh smell of the home-brew caught our nostrils and seemed out of keeping with the earthy smell of the surrounding forest. Like stumbling on a paint striper factory in the middle of the woods.
AGUARDIENTE: Unworried by basic food hygiene practices three of the guajiros pass around the bottle of home brew with the blood of the slain burro still fresh on their hands. Many people would have rejected their offer to sip from the same bottle but not ol’ Glory. I happily shared the drink with them as not to do so would have been to reject their way of life and the fact I only had a mild stomach upset over the next few days was negligible.
The bottle was handed to me. Now, we’ve all been in these situations. I studied the sweating faces of the men who’d just slurped from the vessel, and at the blood and grease stains on the bottle itself. The intense humming of flies around the carcass did little to dispel the fear that the rim of the bottle was crawling in bacteria. My hesitation could have been fatal - I saw the warmth in the old man’s eyes dim - a telltale sign that he was one of those strange people who take umbrage at those who don’t meet his eye when saying “salud” or who abstain altogether from the macho practice of swigging moonshine in a national park. Spotting the gory machetes lying at their feet, however, I threw instinct to the wind. I closed my eyes and pressed the bottle to my lips where, I’m certain, the microbes were so thick I could chew on them.[4]
Lafonda declined to sip from the bottle but the old man simply smiled a gap-toothed grin and shook his head. Different expectations.
We bathed in the sunlight for a while longer to shoot the breeze with these simple farmers, just long enough for them to finish off the contents of the bottle. Only then did they decide it was probably time to take those hunks of meat down off the fence before every fly in Cuba lay its eggs. They hauled the skinned limbs off the fence and hooked them to the side of their horses, leaving the bones and innards to the forest to reclaim.
We returned to the Geely and waved farewell to the farmers whose spirits, I have no doubt, were as lifted by our impromptu visit as ours were by the serendipitous encounter.
No doubt he’d understood me but was too dazed to communicate the story at that particular time. Just because Lafonda is a native Cuban and that the guajiro responded to her in no way indicates a failing in my use of Spanish. Lafonda said as much.
So they claimed.
This is just a guess.
That said, this aguardiente could probably run a tractor so the chances of bacteria surviving for long were slim.