¡Felices Pascuas!
By Grace Carballo ‘17
In my experience, the most difficult times abroad, whether for the culture shock or the homesickness, are during holidays back home. If you would like anecdotal proof, last Thanksgiving I was probably going on hour ten or so working in front of my laptop and a fan on my ISP in Nicaragua when I FaceTimed by family during Thanksgiving dinner. Eating a bag of peanuts and raisins from the pulpería while everyone I missed dearly passed the phone around mid-feast, including my new “brother” Kevin (who’s from Nicaragua studying in my home town), was a less than festive experience.
Just a week or two later, however, I celebrated La Gritería for the first time with my host family and it made up for it immensely. And a few weeks prior we had a MayPole in October celebration that I’ll definitely never top.
When you’re in another country, trying to recreate familiar experiences or celebrate holidays unique to your home country is a bold move and probably going to lead to disappointment. (For example, I’m going to be here in Argentina for 4th of July and I’m not going to try to organize a parade or light off fireworks.) But there will be more Thanksgiving dinners with mashed potatoes and all your favs and how often will you get to celebrate La Purísima or attend your host aunt’s wedding? Probably once in a lifetime, maybe twice if you stumble into a steady income post-grad. So, my advice, while you’re studying abroad, is to live in the moment and celebrate the holidays and exciting occasions in your host country with your new friends, rather than trying to recreate the familiar while abroad.
Last Sunday was my chance to apply this new life lesson on Easter, or Pascua. I was nervous because my family usually hosts Easter and it’s a big deal for us back home so I set out not to make comparisons right off the bat.
On our city tour a few weeks prior we saw the beautiful cathedral of Buenos Aires, where Papa Francisco, former Bishop of Buenos Aires, used to say Mass every Pascua. As soon as we saw it, my new friends (almost exclusively international students- still working on befriending the Argentinians) and I decided it would be great to celebrate Easter there.
The second milagro (miracle) of the day (The first being Jesus’ Resurrection, of course) was that my housemate, Katy, was dressed and ready almost on time, despite several consecutive late nights out, all part of living in Buenos Aires. We took the Subte in our Sunday best all the way to the end of the line to the Catedral stop and also miraculously, arrived in time to get seats together.
The cathedral was crowded but the Mass was only 70 minutes, which on Easter warrants some kind of prize. Of course I felt a little out of place not knowing a lot of the responses in Spanish, but I intend to look them up and maybe bring a “cheat sheet” next time I go. My friends and I probably all seemed like “Chreasters” (people who go to Mass on Christmas and Easter exclusively) but Jesus doesn’t judge them or us so I don’t really care what impression we gave to those around us.
The choir sounded like it literally consisted of angels and it’s possible that it did because from where I was sitting I couldn’t get a good enough look to confirm or deny their mortality. All in all, it was a unique Pascua experience that I’m grateful to have had.
After la misa (the Mass), we treated ourselves to a nice Easter brunch. After weeks of saving money and eating my own average (or slightly below) cooking, it was nice to go out and see how the professionals are prepping their food these days.
Our Easter Brunch was shared amongst friends and housemates from France, Spain, and various other states so the conversation was mostly in Spanish (with various accents though we try our best to pronounce words correctly) and a bit of French and English here and there to get jokes across or ask about a specific word.
Inflation, as you may have heard, is a huge problem in Argentina and my meal cost about 130 Argentine pesos, which sounds absurdly pricey, but at the moment of this post, there are about 14.7 pesos per USD. And in a city where “solo efectivo” (”cash only”) is the norm, not the exception, you can imagine paying the bill in a large group can be quite the spectacle.
I still FaceTimed my family later, perhaps I’m a slow learner, but I actually kept it together this time. As long as you remind yourself that nothing is ever going to be the same as it is at home, and that’s why you went abroad in the first place, every holiday and celebration abroad has limitless potential. It can’t not live up to your expectations because you don’t know what to expect. Happy belated Pascua and warm wishes for all future holidays, as well.
Fight On and Branch Out,
Grace Carballo ‘17
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