La Busqueada de Huevos
Last year I was in Buenos Aires for Easter. I have to say it was one of the most depressing weekends of my life. I really didn’t have any friends and the whole city completely empties for the holiday. The weekend starts on Thursday when a lot of people get off work for a long weekend. It is not so much that Argentines are religious. It is more that they love their vacations. Nothing is open, no one is here, and everyone who is is doing something with their family. Man, it is making me sad even now!
But I have come a long way since last Easter. I have some friends and I knew this weekend was going to be a big ol’ bummer. So, I decided to organize an egg hunt.
My friend Ruben (aka Joe) and I decided to get together and dye eggs. The trouble is there are no CVSs or Walgreens here. Moreover, they don’t even have Easter Egg Hunts, so there would be no egg dying kits to be found, even if I knew where to buy them. I decided to walk around the ‘hood and see what I could find. As I said earlier, very few things were open as everyone had fled the city for the holiday. I came across an all-purpose store (you know, they sold candy, cigarettes and dolls) and bought some small tubes of tempera paint and some little brushes. I then went to a small market and bought 2 and a half dozen eggs.
And I boiled those bad boys. I boiled them hard.
My buddy Rodrigo was over when Joe stopped by after poker and we went to town on those eggs. Being Leslie, I decided every egg would have a number on it and that they all had to be written the same way, so I took out a Sharpie and wrote 1 -24 on all the eggs. After that, though, I put control-freak-Leslie aside and said that the boys could do whatever they wanted to the eggs. And the came out SO WELL!
The next afternoon, Joe and I went to the park and hid the eggs. My buddy Sam Slaughter, who had been couch surfing at my pad, came a little later. I tried to make a map of Parque Lezama the night before so that we could mark down about where every egg was hidden. Joe and I also tried to write a little description. Most descriptions said “in a tree.” But a few of our eggs had interesting homes. Some were in Statues or fences, one was in a kiosk at the feria where a woman was selling kaleidescopes, and another was on top of a bass drum of a band that played.
A little later some friends met up for the Easter Picnic we planned. We were definitely lacking in food. As we waited for the troops to rally, a little boy on a bike and his sister rolled past and asked me what we were doing with all the little eggs. I explained the tradition and told the two of them they could be part of the hunt in one hour. But as little kids would do in an egg hunt, they started looking right away.
Tennessee and Jessica Fain were the only two “grown-ups” in the mood to hunt and Joe and I knew where they were, so it was on: the oldies vs. the newbies. The kids had a head start for sure (by one hour) but by that point, random people had seen a lot of the more visible eggs and “moved them.” I’d like to think they were a nice snack for someone, but since they don’t do egg hunts here, maybe they didn’t realize they were hardboiled nor fresh. Maybe some were eaten by dogs. Maybe someone thought they were too beautiful to leave in a tree. I cannot know for sure. But I like to think there is a shrine to one of my eggs in someone’s house. I mean, isn’t that we all hope?
In the end, the kids had to go home, so they only found 6 eggs in total, and while Tennessee definitely had the height advantage, Jessica had the advantage of walking around with Ruben, who, well, knew where the eggs were.
We then walked around with the map trying to find the rest. In total, we only maintained 15 eggs. I don’t think that is a bad amount considering how many people were in Parque Lezama, how big the area of the hunt was, and how delicious a hardboiled egg is.
The hardest egg to get was in a nook about 15 feet in a tree. I am not going to tell you how Ruben and I got it in there, but Jessica retrieved it! A very large guy with a skinny girlfriend walked by and Jessica and I asked them if they could help us. The guy asked if he should pick Jessica up and we were like, “Well, we thought you’d pick up your girlfriend,” but apparently he wanted to grab Jessica!
I won’t name names, but one of my friends came to the picnic and said something in an obviously snide way, “Wow, you put a lot of effort into this.” And he was right. But I really enjoyed every minute of it and if it is uncool to put effort into aimless activities, then I am just the biggest loser out there. And it feels great.
