Saturday, March 10th, 2012
Today was my host mom’s birthday, and much like women
turning 30 in the US, she was a little unsure about the idea. And while I’m
only 21, I remember being a lot younger thinking that 30 was so old, but in
reality, it’s still so young. Especially because Ana could still pass for being
in her 20s easily.
After returning from Bariloche, I headed to a librería (think
school supply shop) to find some colored paper to make her a card. In addition
to having AWFUL greeting cards here, I think in the course of my life, I’ve
made 90% of the special-occasion cards that I’ve given to friends and family
and Ana was no exception. I encountered a surprise at the librería when I found origami paper for one peso! I’m far from being even mediocre at
origami, but when I have time, I love to practice my favorite folds and attempt
some new ones. I’m a master at cranes so I bought 10 sheets for .50 USD and
started thinking of a way I could use them for Ana’s card. Also, being a school supply fanatic, I couldn’t help but
purchase them for my first day of school. I got everything for $50 pesos and
while this isn’t necessarily a bargain, it’s still pretty cheap and totally
worth the school supply high.
Once I returned from the store, I saw the kitchen in an
organized disarray. Ana was baking her own birthday cakes! Cakes. Plural. She
was making cheesecake, lemon meringue and some kind of nutty/coffee crumble
cake. All of these by the magic of her hands. She generally always makes
everything from scratch. I know we all have these nostalgic romantic fantasies
about a “home cooked meal from scratch” and mine are no different. I’ve never
had a from-scratch cheesecake. The closest I’ve gotten is a prepackaged crust
and prepackaged cheesecake mix. This pales in comparison to the genius of Ana’s
cooking. The worst part is that she never believes me on how incredible her
culinary skills are. Probably because for her, it’s completely normal and she’s
been doing it since childhood. But for me, almost never do I see “pure”
ingredients going into a handmade cake. The convenience to make a cheesecake in
less than 20 minutes is invaluable—but you’re always going to sacrifice taste
and increase your chemical intake.
While I wanted to help her, I seemed to only be getting in
the way and given that I didn’t have the recipe memorized, I wasn’t going to be
much help. Plus with the food processor going every 2 minutes, it was hard to
keep a conversation so instead, I passed the day Skyping with mi novio <3
After an afternoon of being overly social with my boyfriend,
I realized that I probably appeared to be anti-social to my host family.
Towards the end of our conversation, I began to hear people arriving to our
house for Ana’s birthday and I opened my bedroom door into Ana’s family
standing in the kitchen, huddling over food and adoring Ana’s niece.
The birthday party was interesting because while it was
distinctively Argentine in terms of the conversation, hand gestures and manner
of speech, if you only saw a photo of it, it would look like any familial
get-together in the US due to the variety of food and drink in addition to the
warmth (and loudness) of everyone towards each other. Later on in the evening I
brought out my Rebel to photograph the priceless face of Ana’s niece, Sofia,
but also because nobody else had a camera and I am on my mission to take more
photos. The thing was that I wanted to snap candid photographs; capture the
expressions and genuine Argentine sentiments. But I couldn’t do this because in
addition to being one of the least conspicuous cameras around, Rebels are also
incredibly noisy. You can definitely hear every snapshot. But regardless, I
tried my best.
After the “family” birthday party, there was the party with
Ana’s friends at a neighborhood bar. Obviously, I only knew Ana, Juan and the
few people from the family party that happened to be here too. Once my roommate
left around 2ish, I felt a little awkward because I’m not sure how to start a
conversation in Spanish in a bar when I’m not drunk and I can barely hear
anything with a group of people I don’t know, staring at me like “uhh, are you
supposed to be here?”. But finally I had the guts to talk to Ana’s brother who
introduced me to his friend who was intrigued by my being from the US. And then
he asked me to dance.
When it comes to structured dance, I understand that if the
man knows how to dance, you’re supposed to let him lead, and I try. I really
try, but because I don’t know what to anticipate, it’s hard for me to just go
with the flow, because I don’t know where the flow is coming from, nor where it’s
going. For this, I probably looked like a Lego trying to dance, and my new
friend laughed at me just telling me to relax. I have no idea what the exact
style of dance was, but it involved this movement of shaking your bum without actually
shaking your bum. It was in the hips and legs—kind of like bellydancing (which I
learned the secret to this summer at my local library!). During a faster paced
song, I was snatched away by the jumping, screaming group of women who I was glad
to “be a part of”.
By 4 am, I was starting to get a little delirious despite
the fact that I’d only had half of a beer 2 hours ago. I asked a noticeably
more intoxicated Juan if I could go back to the house and he said sure. Given
that we’d driven here and it was now 4am, I was a little nervous about walking
home completely alone in Nuñez,
but at the same time, there was no way I could wait any longer.
Finally rounding the corner to the apartment, I crashed in
my tiny bed smelling of humidity and cigarettes—a smell that will always have a
hint of BA to it, but a smell that I will never be fond of no matter how good
the night was…
No comments:
Post a Comment