By about 9pm all of Doña Clara’s children had gathered at house, except for her daughter who has lived in the States for the last eight or nine years. The oldest son, Tony, takes care of all the animals and manages the family land a few kilometers outside of Olinalá. Pepe works in the local government and helps with the family business, tending the clothing stand. Liz helps with the family business and will soon open her own beauty salon in the space below where I now live. Güero works at the local Nissan dealership. Carmen and Male, the two sisters who are married and the only children who do not live at home, both have shoe stores in town. Pelón, the youngest, is in his first year at la prepa (high school grades 10-12) and helps with the family business as well.
We sat around the table talking and laughing, ready to cut the two rosca de reyes cakes. The cakes sat in the middle of the table. Baked inside of each cake were five to eight small plastic dolls, no bigger than an inch, waiting to be discovered with each slice of the knife. Tradition has it that if the piece you cut from the cake has a doll in it you are responsible to host the party and make the tamales for La Candelaria on February 2.
We sipped our hot chocolate in anticipation to see who would get the first doll. One the first slice, Liz, found one of the small dolls. For cake number one, I was the second to cut a slice from the cake. I escaped the responsibilities of making tamales. There was plenty of laughter and jokes as we all took our turn, some finding a little doll in his or her piece, and others not.
As if one cake was not enough, the entertainment continued as we cut into the second cake. I cut my piece, and again, I escaped; however, Pepe saw a tiny piece of the doll in the cake that I “discovered” with my slice. And apparently if you undercover any piece of the doll, even if it is still in the cake and not in your piece, it’s yours. And to make things better, as he was digging around in the cake to give me my doll, he uncovered another, which was supposedly mine too. I think there was some trampa (cheating) happening, but everyone got lots of good cheer out of me having found twins.
With the cake festivities finished, many with a doll or two sitting in front of us, Mari Carmen passed out the Loteria cards. Loteria is like Bingo with pictures, and the way we played, the whole card needed to be filled to win. With a handful of dried corn to use as our markers at the ready, everyone placed their 2 pesos bets. Thankfully the original suggestion of a 5 pesos per game bet was reduced to 2 pesos. In the ten or so games we played I never once scored the 20 pesos pot, but I did manage to lose 20 plus pesos before I asked to be the caller.
In Olinalá the three kings did not bring toys and clothing; rather they brought entertainment and laughter.
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