1-29-11
I went to a baby shower this afternoon, which I enjoyed immensely. I stopped at my host family’s house in the morning to do some laundry, and Niña Angelita asked me if I had a gift bag I could regalar (gift to) her. I told her that I unfortunately had only the one which I had just bought. She smiled and said, Oh, it’s for the same invitation! The baby chow!
My first thought at the words “baby chow” was to wonder if the lucky mom was expecting to give birth to a small Chinaman, which I’m sure would be thoroughly disconcerting to the Salvadoran father. Dismissing this as exceptionally unlikely, in a country where Asians are about as rare as a hot shower and indoor plumbing, my second thought was to contemplate that Gerber had perhaps come out with a new line of food called “Baby Chow” – you know, like puppy chow, but for babies.
After a minute or two, I finally put the connections together, and realized they were actually saying baby shower, simply in their own special way. Salvadorans often adopt English words for things or customs which are so unheard of in their country that they don’t even have a Spanish phrase for. Like “car wash”. Or “sushi”. Alright, I guess that one is probably technically Japanese, but you get the picture. Apparently, the former volunteer in my site held the town’s first baby shower a few years ago, and now they’re quite popular.
As far as showers go, it was actually pretty standard. The shower was for Marlena, the daughter of my neighbor Mirtala. I’d never actually met Marlena, since she lives in San Salvador, but that certainly makes no difference at a Salvadoran baby shower. The shower itself started at one, but I didn’t go until two, knowing that if I showed up at one I’d be the only one there. Angelita and I came together, and the first thing they did was give us food. (I love El Salvador.) They gave us what struck me as a sort of Salvadoran version of a mini-pizza. A crispy tortilla, topped with a thin layer of refried beans, cortido (shredding cabbage and carrot), cucumber and tomato slices, hardboiled egg, and guajada, a kind of salty cheese. They served it with horchata juice. After that, they realized that I had brought a camera, and I was put to work as the official event photographer. I was busy for a while, snapping photos of all the games and prizes. I had a brief respite when they brought out more food, chicken tamales and hot chocolate.
After eating again, all the kids wanted me to take pictures of them so they could look at them, and I showed a few of the older ones how to take photos themselves. (As a consequence, I have about forty photos of the same three people sitting across from us.) Then they handed out thick, cake-like doughnuts coated liberally with sugar, and more horchata juice. The last thing was, of course, the presents. Also quite standard. The mom-to-be held up every individual present so I could take a photo; so now I have about thirty photos of the same woman holding up virtually indistinguishable baby outfits and blankets. The only diversion during this process was that Marlena’s sister shouted out, “And by the way – the seventh present she opens is the next person here who’ll be pregnant!” Guess whose gift she plucked out seventh?
Yep, lucky me. So Mom, if you get any voicemails in the immediate future that say, “Um, we need to talk…yeah, I’m coming home…” you’ll know why. Blame the baby shower.
