The Magic Knife With Apologies to Mozart and Louis Armstrong

I woke up laughing this morning because of something our nurse told me last night.

I am involved in many day to day activities with people who work with animals and whose level of superstition and ignorance in general sometimes astounds me. About two months ago when a big fiesta was planned in the local province sized town named Challhuahuacho, I was invited to slaughter a bull. This is an insanely macho culture that does a lot of bull fighting and the like. Men ride while women follow: they beat their wives and so on. It is mostly pretty ugly when you talk about family relations.

Well, I had an inkling that I might get asked to participate in this fashion and have little doubt that I would have been asked to participate in the bullfight if I had been here. Anyway, I asked about their method for such a slaughter and it turned out to be primitive. Just down by the river on a grassy spot, they roped up the bull’s feet and tripped him. Then a gang of us held the bull down and tied the feet as tight as they would go.

Their trick was to put a big knife tip at the base of the skull and give a sharp strike and knock the bull out. I saw this as fiddling with disaster. I had my little Benchmade sharp enough to skin a fish and I pulled it out and before they knew what was happening, I made quick work of cutting the big boy’s throat. They were all pretty astounded at the time, that a gringo knew how to do it and that I did it with a little pocket knife.

Well, the story has grown with time. Two months have passed and now the bull was a giant. Everyone knows my name and knows about the bull. So, last night the girls put up a bulletin board that includes a picture of me in another opportunity holding a bull’s horns while a vet administered the anti parasite medicine. One of the ladies from one of the communities came up and looked at the picture and asked, “Is that Mister Hasler?”

Rosa, the nurse said, “Yes that is.”

Campesina lady; “I heard that he slaughtered a huge bull with a knife. Is that true?”

Rosa said, “Yes and it was a little bitty knife!”

The campesina studied the photo for a second then turned a sidelong glance to Rosa and said knowingly, “He must have a trick…”

And that made me laugh myself awake this morning.