Countdown: three weeks. I can’t believe my time en mi querida Argentina is almost over. I’m gonna miss the delicious bland food, the mullets, the Italian-inflected Spanish, the numerous tiny shops, and the beautiful women (in case you didn’t know, Buenos Aires has a significantly higher percentage of attractive people than any city I’ve been to in the US–this is a topic for another post).
Once Friday hits, Insha’Allah, I’ll be totally done with my exams and papers for the semester. And after that? Grad school applications and hopefully a trip down to the Dirty South, which in this case means southern Argentina.
How weird is it to run into a pair of Pakistani Americans from California when waiting in line at an ice cream shop in Buenos Aires with another desi from the US? It’s so odd to run into your “own kind” in such a random place. I mean, I see plenty of white Americans around here, but I’m totally not used to meeting other brown people with American accents in Argentina. Ah, the joys of living in the South Asian diaspora.
Last Friday had to have been one of the coolest and most random days I’ve had in my time abroad.
After jummah, I met a young Bangladeshi American couple from New Jersey that was vacationing in Buenos Aires. It’s random enough to meet Bangladeshis, much less Bangladeshi Americans, in this city, as I only know one other bangladeshí yanqui besides me.
My two Muslim American friends that are studying here and I took them out. I felt like I was in some weird Islamoamerican version of Argentina because I’m not exactly accustomed to being around four other Americans that practice my religion down here.
That night, all but one of us ate dinner at a cheap, shabby hotel filled with Bangladeshi men. The hotel, which is located just about ten blocks away from where I live, is probably not the type of hotel you’re thinking of. Basically, it’s a combination of an apartment building and a hotel, where each unit just has one room, and everyone shares a bathroom. A lot of people that can’t afford to live in real apartments live in places like that for extended amounts of time.
While I was there, I saw about five of the who-knows-how-many Bangladeshis that live there, but just two of them did most of the cooking. The food was delicious. They prepared fried rice, chicken, beef, and eggs, all mixed together. There was even achar, or pickled mango. You Bengalis know what I’m talking about! It was great to eat a full Bengali meal made by authentic Bengalis actually from Bangladesh after such a long time away from home. I can’t even begin to describe their hospitality.
The sheikh that gave the khutbah at the masjid that day was at the hotel as well. Because I had seen him dressed in a dishdasha and a kuffiyeh, I was taken aback to see him in “normal” clothes. Plus, he spoke calmly in Spanish and Urdu and didn’t speak Arabic in a loud voice like he had at jummah. He was actually a pretty down to earth guy. Originally from the city of Lucknow in northcentral India, he studied Islam in Saudi Arabia for fifteen years. At some point, the Saudi government, I think, sent him to Ciudad del Este, Paraguay ten years ago to serve the large Muslim community there. He speaks Urdu, Arabic, Spanish, and Portuguese fluently and some English. We talked to each other en castellano because that was the only language we had in common. Yeah, I never thought I would be talking to an Indian sheikh in Spanish.
After reading HijabMan’s intriguing post about a coffee pot lota and watching Ummah Film’s recent video about cleanliness in Islam, I felt compelled to tell the world about my special Argentine lota.
It’s nothing more than a water bottle.
“Che, slow down. What’s a lota?”
I’m glad you asked. Using HijabMan’s definition, it’s a vessel used to carry and pour water. But when you hear South Asian American Muslims use the term, it almost always refers to the watering thing used to wash your behind after you do number two. I say bodna when I’m around Bengalis because that’s our term for this magical vessel. Sadly, the term is falling into disuse amongst the Bengali American youth due to the Urdu/Hindi domination of Indian and Pakistani Muslims.
Back to the topic. I figured that since I buy bottled water nearly every week, I might as well make use of the empty containers to, for the lack of a better phrase, lavar mi trasero (to wash my behind). Besides, it’s such a great way to recycle.
I keep my lotas on the floor by the wastebasket in my room. And I say lotas because either the maid that comes by my host family’s home thrice a week throws them away when she cleans my room or I replace them about every week or two since I just have to make use of every bottle I have. Sometimes I keep them in my closet so the she can’t get a hold of them.
“Wait, why do you keep your lota in your room? Shouldn’t it be next to the toilet?”
Well, I just don’t feel comfortable enough with my host family to tell them not to throw any water bottles they find in the baño because I use them to wash my butt. Although I’m sure they would understand the concept of cleaning your behind with water since most Argentine households have bidets (including theirs), I would feel a bit awkward explaining that to my host mom, host brother, and maid. What am I supposed to do? Call all three of them to the living room for a “talk”? No gracias. Whenever I need my lota, I keep it hidden with my towel when I walk to the bathroom. Yeah, maybe I am a bit paranoid but whatever.
For those of you that just use toilet paper to clean yourself, I recommend complementing your cleaning procedure with water. You may think it’s crazy that most Muslims do this, but just take a look at the inside of your underwear and tell me what you see. I rest my case.
Shortly after finishing jummah today at the ginormous masjid in Buenos Aires, I saw a bunch of unfamiliar, desi-looking bearded men dressed in thobes, but I didn’t think about stopping by to talk to them since they looked busy conversing with one another. However, an Argentine sister wanted to know where they were from, so I decided to say salaam and introduce myself. I found out they were from the Johannesburg, South Africa area and had been in Argentina for a few months, traveling from city to city, province to province to spread the message of Islam. It also turned out that they were fourth-generation South African Indians. Fascinating. They spoke English in some sort of pseudo-British accent which I barely understand at times. What was even cooler was that they had all been to Bangladesh.
When they told me they were members of Tablighi Jamaat, I was a bit intimidated. I heard that Tablighis were like a mix of Evangelical Christians and Mormon missionaries who travel and go door to door telling Muslims to convert to their brand of Islam, so I thought they were trying to recruit me or something. I mean, they don’t promote violence or anything, but the thought of Evangelical Muslims is a bit scary. Plus, their huge beards were intimidating as well. It’s weird how, as a well-educated, open-minded Muslim, I automatically assume that beardacious Muslim men are out there to judge and criticize others while thinking that only they have the keys to Paradise. Obviously, this isn’t always true.
At the end of the conversation, they asked me for my number and said that we should hang out sometime soon before they leave for South Africa in a week. I was like “Sure…” and said that we should meet up sometime during the weekdays. I headed out to have lunch with some friends, and then I realized I missed a great opportunity to have something interesting to blog about. And I felt a little guilty for having preconceived notions about them simply because they belonged a group I didn’t know much about. So I went back to the masjid to pray asr and found them there.
We took a cab to Recoleta, one of the ritzier Buenos Aires neighborhoods, to the offices of an airline so that they could make some changes to their tickets. (On a side note, the armed security guards that greeted us as we entered the building happened to be there a few minutes later. Coincidence? I think not.) Afterwards, I tried to help them find a currency exchange place, but we couldn’t find one that was open and had a good exchange rate from dollars to pesos. During this entire time, we talked about our families, our lives back home, and the importance of following Islam to lead a moral existence. Despite living different lives in entirely different countries, our love for Islam brought us together. Alhamdulillah.
What’s the moral of the story, kids? Never judge a man by his beard.
I dearly miss Bangladeshi dawats. They formed an integral part of my life growing up. Because I’ve always lived in places with small Bangladeshi communities, dawats (invitations) were my primary source of socialization with Bangladeshi Americans and Muslims from my early years till high school.
“What the $%#@ is a dawat?” Well, first you can tone down your language. I believe dawat means invitation in Bengali, but in the context of Bangladeshi American life, it means a get together of family friends, who are almost always Bangladeshi. Sometimes you get the occasional white guy who works at your dad’s office who obviously feels really uncomfortable and out of place. And he usually comments about how spicy the food is.
Dawats are especially important for the older, immigrant generation. Not quite comfortable with American life, they find solace in socializing with other Bangladeshi immigrants. Dawats allow them to talk to others with whom they can relate. When I was younger, I didn’t understand why my parents loved dawats so much. But now, as an American living in Argentina, I can totally empathize. Whenever I meet Americans randomly in Buenos Aires, I feel like I’ve met a long-lost friend, even though we probably wouldn’t care to hang out with each other back home. It’s funny how that works.
The younger, American-raised generation has mixed feelings about the dawat scene. There are those who absolutely hate them to those who love going for the food. Because they are more comfortable with American culture than their parents and have friends outside of their Bangladeshi circle, they generally don’t rely on dawats as their prime source of socialization.
I’ve been to dawats across the U.S., and they all seem to consist of the same things. They typically start with guests arriving at least twenty to thirty minutes late. Even though they were told to come at seven, they think it’s no big deal to show up nearly an hour later. The uncles then go to the living room while the aunties congregate in the vicinity of the kitchen or some other room. Keeping with tradition, males and females are almost totally segregated. Also keeping with tradition, the females, especially the aunties and teenage girls, almost always wear saris and salwar kameezes. And the guys, well, they just wear Western garb. The toddlers and little kids run around the house screaming, or they find toys to keep them occupied. Then they run around the house screaming. The older kids and teenagers play video games or hang out in some isolated area. Oh yeah, the teenage guys and girls try not to acknowledge each other too much, fearing that their parents might suspect some shadiness. This definitely applies to the college crowd, who I will talk about right now. In between uncles/aunties and high schoolers, they’re not quite sure where they fit in. They try to avoid talking with the elders too much because they have this feeling that they’re trying to hook them up with some girl or guy in Chittagong.
After hanging out for about an hour, dinner is served. It typically consists of Bangladeshi fare, but “American” dishes such as ravioli may be served to satisfy the American-raised youngsters. Drinks usually consist of soda and water. Oftentimes, there won’t be any silverware, and one must ask for a spoon or fork. I was (and still am) that person.
About two hours after dinner, mishti (sweets) and cha (tea) are served. Of course, no good dawat is complete without roshogollas. These days, many families even serve “American” dishes, like store-bought pumpkin pie. We have to try to be American sometimes, you know.
The dawat can end anywhere from one to several hours after desert. There never is an official end time. In fact, they can last all night. I’ve never been to a dawat like this, but I’ve heard crazy stories about how some lasted till the crack of dawn. We really know how to party.
