Basketball and The Asado

Two weekends ago, as a fun excursion, our school scheduled a basketball game against a city team in Greater Buenos Aires, called the Quilmes Atletico Club. When they scheduled the game against a group of Americans I'm sure the QAC was expecting some really strong competition. After all, we invented the sport. We drove an hour in our van, listened to some inspirational music, and then entered the gym. Anyone who knows me probably already realizes I'm terrible at basketball. I rarely hold my own in pickup games. But the Argentines are small people so I thought I'd be able to at least do alright. During warmups 4 out of the 5 starters threw down tomohawk dunks. One-sided wasn't even a good way to describe the game. They destroyed us. We kept up a lot better than I thought we would, we made some baskets, rebounded, I committed a near flagrant foul, did some heavy duty trash talking, the usual. Afterwards we hung around for a little, made some conversation, and ate empanadas with the team.

Last weekend, for my host-brother Augustin's 36th birthday, me and the roommates headed out to his house in Santa Barbara, outside the city, for an Asado (BBQ). It could have literally been anytown USA. Big houses, wide open winding streets, kids riding bikes and playing around. My first taste of Argentine suburbia. His house would have fit in anywhere in America too except he had a parilla (grill) enclave built into the outside of his house. The asado is just like an American barbecue, but way way more serious. We use gas on a little grill or possibly charcoal; these guys specifically burn down logs and then use the ashes as the coals because it gives off a more even, slower heat. And it's not like they just throw hamburgers on the grill. What do I see when I head over to the grill but a pig's head staring back at me. On closer inspection I also find it's entire body, cut right down the middle and spread over the grill. It is absolutely brutal, and I keep explaining to these guys how much harder it's going to be to eat an animal that's staring back at me. Augustin just keeps going on about how good the neck fat tastes.
It turns out these guys may be better than us at asados, but they're just rookies as well. The real pro eventually arrives. This guy brought his own extra sharp asado knife, in a leather sheath. He sets up shop and everyone clears out of the way. The asadadero has arrived.
The first thing he starts telling me is how to make blood sausage. He gives a super-graphic representation of putting a pig on a table, slitting its throat, and then draining the blood from the jugular vein into a bucket so you can later stuff it into a sausage. It's absolutely horrifying, and my host-mom looks horrified, but I play along and try and act interested. I even go so far as to ask him a question. He had just told me that the pigs make all kinds of noises when they die, so I go for the follow up question. Unfortunately, the problem with the word pig, is that one little mistake really screws things up. Pig in spanish is el chancho. But I get the word slightly wrong, and my question comes out "Entonces la concha hace mucho ruido cuando la matas?" Literally translated, this means "so the vagina makes a lot of noise when you kill it?" (kill it here is slang for sex). This guy looks at me for a second with the most confounded look I've ever seen, and then starts hysterically laughing. He's about to correct me but I've already realized my mistake and have turned a deep shade of red.
We sat down for food, and I don't know why but the conversation immediately turned to women. From there of course it arrived on my other host-brother Ivan's girlfriend situation. Here's the background: Ivan is 29, he lives at home but he never eats here and he occasionally sleeps out on weekends. Everyone at the asado started questioning him on whether he had a girlfriend or not, but he absolutely refused to come clean. I was confused what the big deal was, but then someone explained to me that before Augustin got married he hadn't even told our mom that he was dating a woman. He just came home one day and told her he was engaged. I like this style, so Mom, expect a surprise when I come home... or maybe not.
Everything else besides that was a lot of fun. The family was wonderfully fun and really friendly with us. After the asado was over and the meat was gone the asadero got a standing ovation. That just doesn't happen in America. We traded off some cheek-kisses and then we left.

And now for an update from 5 minutes ago. Our mom has been a little sick lately (I know a bunch of people are gonna connect the roast pig and the sickness, but no, it's not swine flu). She had to get a monitor on her arm for a couple of days to make sure her heart is beating normally. She just walked into my room and asked if I was indeed Jewish. I said yes, and then she pulled open her shirt to reveal a package with a bunch of wires leading out of it strapped to her chest, and yelled "Yo soy un talibano ahora." I laughed for about 5 straight minutes. That's not even the most ridiculous thing she's done in the past week. 3 days ago she bribed me to do her english class homework by feeding me cake and pecan pralines, and then agreed to look over one of my spanish essays for me. She looked over it, made all the connections necessary, and I just got it back and got an 83% on it. I'm real confused.