Awkward much?

A – Awkward: It’s become an omnibus word in colloquial high school and college-aged English, used to refer to any person or situation that doesn’t flow with social conventions.  In the U.S., ‘awkward’ can be the perfect word for anything from having to ask someone to remind you of their name after several hangouts, to running into an estranged ex while with a new girlfriend.  It’s something that makes you feel tremendously uncomfortable – the squirmy feeling you inevitably get when watching Michael Scott on The Office.

Funny thing – there’s no word here for that feeling.  The closest thing is ‘incómodo’ (uncomfortable), but that doesn’t begin to capture the unease of not being invited to one’s host sister’s wedding (as recently happened to a friend).  It came as a shock to realize that, as far as I can tell, ‘awkward’ doesn’t exist here because people just don’t get that feeling the way we get it stateside.

It’s got a lot to do with how open people here tend to be.  In contrast to U.S. culture, in which there’s something wrong with being overly friendly, a lot of my colectivo (bus) or subte (subway) rides include conversations with strangers (to be fair, usually octogenarians).  And while sharing too much about one’s personal life is taboo in the US, no topic here is off-limits.  Recently, within the first 15 minutes of getting drinks with a group of students from one of my classes (people who had never hung out before), people started unreservedly discussing the ways that they shaved their “partes íntimas.”  10 minutes later, people were setting each other up on dates with their siblings, and inviting each other over for dinner.

In part, it’s a result of the relaxed, bordering on “aaah fuck it” attitude, that in no small part comes from Argentina’s history of everything going to hell every 10 or 20 years.  Between a decade-long military junta, and an economic crash in 2001 that saw hyperinflation and five presidents in power in less than a year, uncertainty has become a given in the Argentine socio-political-economic system.  Taking time to gradually open up to someone is a luxury people don’t really see the point of.  So instead of social subtlety, Porteños go all out, with the extroverted passion of a golden retriever on the first day of obedience school.

Nowhere is this attitude is more apparent than in boliches (huge dance clubs).  People in the US might feel some reservations about hitting on strangers, or if not, they tend to be somewhat subtle in their approach.  Here, I’ve yet to hear the word sutil; the typical club interaction is:

Guy: You’re beautiful, and your smile is my life.  I’ve heard American girls are great kissers. Do you have a boyfriend?
Girl: (Trying to get the guy to go away) Yes.
Guy: Is he here?

This idea of what’s socially acceptable between men and women isn’t isolated to boliches.  Another thing that’s still catches me off guard: Public Displays of Affection, Buenos Aires style.

There’ll be a post eventually just about PDA.  But OH DEAR LORD Porteños just don’t give a fuck about what other people think.  Sometimes it’s teenagers making out in McDonalds.  Sometimes it’s a 30-year-old couple playing tonsil-hockey like there’s no tomorrow on the morning commuter train.  But nobody seems to be discomforted by seeing people trying to make a baby without taking their clothes off.  The explanation I’ve heard from some people is that, because most people live with their parents until they get married (i.e. not much privacy), a lot of kissy-face happens out in public.  But that doesn’t really explain the 50 year olds doing things that would make Paris Hilton blush.

I don’t mean to imply that Argentines don’t notice things that cut against the social grain.  A couple Porteños, upon hearing what ‘awkward’ means in the U.S., have commented that it’d be useful to have a word like that in Buenos Aires.  Other ideas will never catch on here.  When I explained the idea of PDA to a porteña, she was shocked that we had a term for that in the U.S.  Then, in a desperate attempt to describe what Americans usually do in parks (ya know, instead of making out), I tried to describe the concept of ‘people watching’;  failing horribly, it came across as a terrible hybrid of introversion and stalking.   Awkward, right?

Piously Perplexed

R – Religion (part 1): While I could talk about the fact that basically everyone here is Catholic, I think the fact that my professor called me a virgin in my first religion class is more worthy of this space.

Let me explain:  This class, Psychology of Religion, is taught by Professor Garzarelli, a vivacious 55 year-old paunchy man who is easily charismatic enough to woo 20 year-olds.  It was the first class (more or less a month ago).  Naturally, we were discussing immaculate conception.  Garzarelli approached the blackboard, and quickly sketched a bed; then, gracefully, the flowing outline of a women.

Pausing for a moment to smirk at the class, he scrawled “OOOOH YEAAAH” above the drawing.  His verbal description of immaculate conception? (translated) “So here was God. And here was Mary. And God was like, ‘Ooooh Yeaaah.’  And then Mary was like ‘Oooooooh Yeah.’”

I followed the story up to this part, despite a slew of religion-specific vocabulary and fast, mumble-y, porteño Spanish. But then Garzarelli asked me something that I didn’t understand.  I hadn’t opened my mouth yet, so it was still feasible for the professor to think that I was porteño – thus the question was asked in the “Your-beard-tells-me-you-too-enjoy-your-mother-language-of-Spanish” voice, not the “You! Are Not… From… Here!” voice.  Quickly realizing from my baffled expression that I was about as porteño as George W., he asked me another question, which I also couldn’t understand.

Abe Lincoln once said, “It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open one’s mouth and remove all doubt.” I, however, not being a history major, did not take this saying to heart, and answered the second question with a resolute, “No.”

I’ve reconstructed, after the fact, that the first question was a conversational, “Do you get what I’m saying?”

The second question, in response to my visible confusion, was “Do you understand what sex is?”  See above for my response.

The professor now ends each class by coming over to my desk, raising my hand for me, smiling deviously, and proclaiming to the girls in the class, “This is Jake.  Jake single!  You take him to club on weekend, no?”

Putting the BS in Bs As

B – Bullshiters: I say this in the best of ways: This is a country of bullshitters.  The idea that you would respond, “I don’t know,” when asked something that you – ya know, don’t know the answer to – is totally foreign to porteños.  When asking directions, the answer will often be “está a la vuelto” or “allá,” whether or not you’re in the same zip code as your destination.

To be fair, this tendency manifests itself in delightful ways.  At one point, I was trying to explain to Esther my confusion/amusement at the word “Ferreteria.” (It means a ‘tool shop,’ from ‘ferrete,’ or ‘a saw’… I think.  Despite generally knowing where this word comes from, all I can think of when I see a ferretería is “ería = shop, ferret = ferret, ferret + ería = Ferret Shop!”).

The story didn’t translate to Spanish particularly well because I didn’t know the Spanish word for ‘ferret.’  Also because stories rarely translate well into Spanish.  So, I decided to show Esther what I was talking about on Google Image Search. (By the way: the verb meaning ‘to google something’ here is the delightful ‘googlear.’)  Upon seeing a ferret (which she had never seen before), she boldly asserted, “Oh, sí, es un oso.  Como un panda.” (Oh yeah. That’s a bear. Like a panda.)  She could not be swayed from this opinion.

Other amusing assertions (from other porteños):
-”Because you didn’t wear a scarf, your neck was cold. So now your throat is sore.”
-”You got mono because you keep your emotions all bottled up.”

That’s just the way things are done here.  Correlation implies causation, and if you can think of a reason for something happening, it’s better to say that than to say nothing at all.   The bad: it’s hard to get a straight answer about anything.  The good: you get 85 year-old women declaring that ferrets are the evolutionary brethren of pandas.  I think it’s clear which side wins out.

I love cute old people.

E – Esther, my 85-year old madre anfitriona (host mom), is the stereotypical Jewish mother.  Though she and Oscar are no longer practicing Jews, they come from culturally Jewish backgrounds.  This comes out in all the ways you’d expect:

1) Frequent worrying about my well being.  Whenever I leave the house, she calls after me, “Yakov, tenés llaves, chaquete, y monedas?” (Jake, do you have your keys, your jacket, and your bus money?)

2) Jewish Food: Yes, we have had gefilte fish on several occasions.

3) And the perfect combination of 1 and 2: worrying about me getting enough food.

As someone who’s been a housewife for almost her entire life, Esther militantly guards her position as commander of the kitchen.  Despite my protests, she adamantly refuses to let me help cook or clean up after dinner.  The one time that I cooked (chocolate chip cookies), she found it absolutely hilarious that I, as a guy, would derive some pleasure from doing “her job” (as she called it).

But she’s not the stereotypical “little-old-lady” that I expected to be living with (I’m not sure why, but I kind of imagined I’d be living with Adam Sandler’s mom in Happy Gilmore).  Especially for an 85-year old, she’s incredibly active; she still drives, she’s taking a music history class, and she plays cards with a group of women who get in fights on a weekly basis.  Esther is also incredibly strong-minded; sometimes with reason, sometimes not.  Last night at dinner, while talking about exercise, she declared that running is bad for women, because it causes their reproductive organs to get jostled around.

She’s also a bundle of internal juxtapositions; on one hand, she knits for several hours every day.  On the other hand, while she knits, she watches incredibly gruesome crime shows (start at 7:21) – you know, those ones with plot lines that would make Stephen King cringe?  This, in a woman who found Jurassic Park to be too scary.

Somehow all these things are brought together in someone who is incredibly sweet, and a really bad-ass host mom.  See below for evidence.

Shortly after this picture was taken, she went out and solved a bunch of murders. Ok, maybe she didn't leave the house, and they were fictional murders on Ley y Orden: Victimas Especiales. Still, bad-ass.

Hello from Buenos Aires!

Welcome to the first and only study abroad blog!

You’re probably asking yourself, 1) Hasn’t Jake been in Buenos Aires for a while now?, 2) Jake has a beard?, and 3) What’s a blog?

I will answer all these questions, and more. But quickly: 1) Yes, 2 months.  But a blog seemed necessary.  2) Evidently you’re not a man here unless you have facial hair. Pictures to come.  3) It’s ok, you’re in good company – Skype confuses/scares my host mom.

In an attempt to avoid falling into the typical study abroad blog pit (“Today I went to the store… Here are pictures!”), posts will be exclusively in the format of an encyclopedia – I’ll give you a word that’s been representative of my day/week/month (if I’m particularly lazy about updating), and let you know what Buenos Aires has to say about it.  Enjoy!

To start off:

U - Up: The movie that was based on my host dad, Oscar.  Not only is he old, paunchy, square-faced, and grumbly (like Carl Fredricksen), he’s also got a heart of gold.

Favorite things about Oscar:

1) He firmly believes that the best remedy for a sore throat is a nice, hot cup of tea… and THREE SHOTS OF TEQUILA.

2) Evidently he did a commercial a few years ago. He’s the guy at the end. My mind was pretty blown when I saw this.

3) Perhaps my favorite Oscar moment so far: We were watching fútbol, so of course he was wearing his fútbol-watching hat, an old baseball cap from University of Wisconsin that a past exchange student gave to him.  He took it off for a moment, looked at it, and then put it on backwards, saying, “Muy de modo, no?” (Really fashionable, right?)

But really, the picture says it all.

Although if he’s Carl Frederickson, and I’m randomly in his house, doesn’t that somehow make me…

"Do I get a badge for speaking in Spanish 24/7?!"

More info on my host family soon!