Jesus!

Argentina is nominally a Catholic country, although few of its inhabitants seem terribly devout, or to adhere to many of the traditional customs of Catholic life, such as attending church. Random patches of Catholicism remain in the culture: divorce wasn’t legal here until the eighties, abortion is illegal, and children celebrate their first (and maybe only) communion with a vengeance. Our host sister, Vicky, celebrated hers this Sunday. The family never goes to church, which may explain the one small mishap that marred the day – no one knew when the mass began, and all the guests were given the wrong time, turning up well after the ceremony began.

It was okay, though. The congregation was unusually boisterous for churchgoers, and no one seemed to notice when we slipped in about twenty minutes after the start. The mass was in general pretty low key – the priest droned on about Jesus or something, while the congregation chatted amongst themselves, children play fought in the back of the church, and people came and went freely. When the priest had some especially important piece of church knowledge to import, he would ask everyone to just please be quiet for once. And people would settle down a little, for a few minutes.

After Vicky had ingested the body and blood of Christ for the first time, we got to the really significant part of the day: the party, for which lengthy preparations had been made. The family rented out a salon, where we gathered with a host of extended family members and Vicky’s friends for an asado. Nate and I talked with Carlos’s German mother about the family history, while she kept insisting that we must eat just one more homemade alfajore – which she advertised as “made by my own hand.” The party concluded with a distribution of party favors, sweet little figurines made by Vicky and her mother. I will cherish mine. -EMW