besos y mejillas

la boca, buenos aires

while i was preparing for my trip down here, i had been in contact with a number of people affiliated with fadu and my housing situation through email. these were always done in spanish and i noticed that my counterparts, whom i´d yet to meet, signed off with un beso (a kiss). while i realized upon arrival that this was more than just a salutatory remark, i can now see that a kiss may be just a kiss.

upon seeing a familiar, or even a new face, it is custom to lean in and give them an innocent peck on the cheek. acceptable and possibly more common, is to connect cheeks and peck the air. i could not say how much time between encounters needs to elapse to make a beso a required greeting. definitely a day, but my guess would be that it would be that an absense long enough for both parties to change clothes would be sufficient.

what´s so amusing about this greeting is about how it has permeated within our group of gringos. in the first large group meetings, we would stand awkwardly and kiss one another´s cheeks when we made the rounds that included some of our hosts. now, with or without locals, we give and receive confidently as if we were lifelong porteños.

the final beso adoption, which is coming slowly, is to give this kiss to men as the locals do. adopting the ´when in rome´ mantra, i ventured to peck my supervisor´s cheek a week ago. it was received without protest, but don´t know if that´s attributable to the custom or the fact that a towering 6´6 bearded freak of nature descended onto an unsuspecting architect. still, it´s nice to do as the locals do and try to shed the residual homophobia so ingrained in the american psyche.

maybe it is the atmosphere that lets us drop some of our american pretensions, or to assume those of buenos aires. it is nice to add a little formality when greeting someone, even if you see them every day or happen to be of the same gender. a gentle brush of mejillas and a kind word are welcome in the age of globalization and i wouldn´t mind seeing more of this custom back in the states. still, the mullet´s not making the flight home.