Pepito

Pepito
March 9, 2012
By: Gina Yoryet Román with shared story by M. V., M. G. and A. O.



Although working with Children can be gratifying and joyful because the moments spent with them are incomparable, I’ve never been one to voluntarily work with them, not because I dislike it but because I don’t know how to handle those energized creatures. Throughout all my teaching years, the only three times I’ve worked with two little girls and one boy it’s been amazing because they made me laugh.
While teaching them we did many fun activities, sometimes I had to be very creative and spontaneous and we monkeyed around to get them to release their energy and tire them out we blew bubbles, played with dolls and little cars, danced, played hide and seek and many other activities.

One thing that is quite intriguing to me is their brain capacity. Sometimes adults think that because they cannot express themselves fully, they are not getting a full glimpse of their surroundings. I’d have to disagree with that because the whole time I spent with those cute little persons, I spoke to them only in English and they caught everything so from thereon, I have a great admiration for them because they teach us the most valuable lessons.

Two years ago S., the first little girl I worked with, inquired about “Pepito,” one of the most legendary characters in México who nobody seems to know, how he was created, where he comes from and how people became acquainted with him. It didn’t even cross my mind that a five year old would know about this character since Pepito is perhaps way older than our
Mexican Revolution because my grandmother (who was born in 1910) would always tell jokes about him.

Even though at that time I didn’t have an answer for S. , I questioned myself many times. “Who is he in reality? Is he a big bulky, intimidating and fierce looking“norteñote” – northerner from Monterrrey? Is he “Michoacano” or “Jalisquillo? How about a timid and introverted “pueblerino” from a small village in the outskirts of somewhere “donde no paso dios”? No! Pepito sounds very blunt, humorous, expressive, energized, someone who uses a lot of swear words and profanity. That’s it! Pepito is “chilango!"

But that matter was left at that since I couldn’t get to the bottom of it.

Then it reemerged about a week and a half ago and perhaps that clarified all my doubts. I split up my students into two groups of four in one of my classes. They were assigned to write their own book and script for their bestseller to put it on video and act it out and so we learned about Pepito’s life…

(Shared story by: M. V., M. G. and A. O. with modifications by Gina Yoryet)

Once upon a time, in a small, picturesque and fairy tale like town called Guadalajara, a chubby little boy named “Pepito” was born. During the first years of his life he was raised in a “Cantina” because his father was a bartender. While he was growing up, he learned bad words, mischiefs and “albures,” Mexican jokes which are a pun or a double entendre in which one of the possible meanings usually carries sexual undertones.

At the time he started school nobody was able to handle him because he was known as “the king of the neighborhood.” One day while in class the Teacher asked the group, “What is the fastest thing in the world?”
One of the boys answered, “Lighting!”
Another boy said, “Electricity!”
And then Pepito raised his hand and implied very assertively, “Diarrhea.”
Needless to say, the teacher asked him, “Can you explain your answer Pepito?”
So Pepito answered, “Yesterday I got up and turned the light on after waking up because I was feeling a bit queasy and the diarrhea came out faster than lighting…"

So Pepito grew up with that belief and he spent many years trying to find proof to back his theory and sought for “faster” theories but he was unable to.

Ten years later Pepito went past the Elementary School he had attended and he thought that his knowledge was enough so he decided to look for work.

“I started working at Mercado de Abastos,” he said. As time went by, Pepito became acquainted with all the vendors and one day he inexplicably came across his lost mother whom he hadn’t seem in a long time. So his mother took him in his house and accepted him to work in her stand at Mercado de Abastos with her.

One day she sent him to buy a clump of “mejorana,” - "Marjoram", a cold-sensitive perennial herb or undershrub with sweet pine and citrus flavours. She repeated “mejorana,” many times so Pepito wouldn’t forget it. When he was walking on the street Pepito kept saying in his mind, “mejorana, mejorana, mejorana…”

When he suddenly stepped on a banana peel, slipped and fell. He landed on his back banging his head against the sidewalk. He was unconscious for a few seconds and when he realized what had happened, he rose immediately and started repeating the word he claimed to remember, “mariguana, mariguana, mariguana,…”

When he finally got to the “tiendita,” he asked the woman at the store for a bundle of “mariguana,” the woman was puzzled and nodded a “no” in reply to him.
A young man nearby happened to hear the conversation and he said to Pepito, “come with me, let’s go to my house and I’ll give you what you’re looking for.” So at last he got what his mother had requested and sprinted back home, gave it to her and she cooked an exquisite meal with that.

At dinner time, she asked the guests, “How is dinner?”
And they all answered very gaily and giggly, “awesome, great, perfect, excellent, nice, cool, delicious, exquisite!”

Pepito felt an incomparable self-fulfillment unlike before because he had made so many people happy so ever since he was able to reach all his goals and lived happily ever after….