Leaving Córdoba (3 of 5): Hombre de Casa

Let’s go back to the mall for a second. It has all the standard stuff that you’d expect to find in a North American mall – a food court, a department store, lots of mid-aisle kiosks selling crappy jewelry – but there are a few surprises too. You can buy medical insurance. You can book a trip at the travel agency. You could even lease a car: In four small corners on the ground floor are four smaller cars – a Chevy, a Peugeot, a Citroën, and a Fiat – and each is accompanied by a man in a suit sitting at a desk, waiting to answer your questions.

The home exercise machines and fine leather products notwithstanding, the most luxurious item at the mall is the mall itself. The charms that have already worn off of similar malls in the U.S. still draw many people to spend parts of their weekends here. With wide stretches of polished stone floors and no sputtering cars to avoid, the mall is the perfect environment for parents, children, and baby carriages. Yet strollers are a rarity in this land of narrow and cracked sidewalks, so the mall has a fleet of loaners, and each is emblazoned with the Nuevocentro Shopping logo.

A word about “shopping”: What was a gerund in English turns into a noun en castellano. Shopping is not an activity; it is a place. The word, as far as I can tell, is always preceded by an article, and is used in sentences like:

• Vivimos en la esquina de Duarte Quiros y Rio Negro, al frente del shopping. (We live at the corner of Duarte Quiros and Rio Negro, right across from the shopping.)

• No, no vendo cospeles. Vas al shopping. (No, I don’t sell bus tokens here. Go to the shopping.)
  

Strange syntax aside, the mall is effectively just another Córdoba commercial street. Never mind the Lacoste, Timberland, and Puma shops. Never mind the Garbarino electronics store with its wall of flat screens playing nothing but futbol and Foo Fighters music videos. And don’t be fooled into thinking that only in the magical world of the mall do cafe waiters run around to the different shops with silver trays of coffee. No, this morning ritual takes place all over Argentina, the only difference being that on the streets outside, the trays are mostly plastic and are usually covered to prevent dust from settling atop the cafe con leche.

Nuevocentro Shopping is also home to shops that play essential roles for the barrio. These less glamorous, quotidian businesses are clustered around the mall's western end, the one furthest away from the Sheraton (and closest to our front door). There’s a newsagent, a supermarket, a shoe repair shop, an ice cream stand; I once bought a plumber’s snake to unclog our shower drain at the hardware store. And the shop on this row that we patronize most regularly is – perhaps not surprisingly – the laundry.

Every day, from 10am to 10pm, they’re there, the team of white-uniformed laundresses, always in plain view, always washing, drying, folding, pressing, and steaming, and always ready to drop whatever it is to receive our weekly two-baskets-worth of dirty clothes. The kids hanging out at the bottom of the cinema steps don’t concern them; they smile at me as we count out piles of remeras, pantalones, y ropa interior.

Having someone do your laundry anywhere is a privilege, but here, even though it’s cheap by U.S. standards (about four bucks a load), it's a genuine luxury, and I am pretty sure that we’re their best customers. It’s gotten to the point that they no longer ask me my name (they just write “JONAS” on the little green ticket) or for my phone number (which I still have not memorized). They’ve stopped raising their eyebrows at the number of t-shirts I bring them, even if I’m still a bit embarrassed by the gargantuan size of the plastic bags in which our clothes are returned – cleaned, folded, and smelling strongly of chemicals.

Recently Andrea – she’s the one who pulls her hair back with a thick headband that makes her baby face look even rounder – remarked to one of her co-workers at the lavanderia how funny it was that I was the one who they saw all the time. “Hombre de casa,” I heard her say, laughing. The words translate to “man of the house,” but it seemed clear enough that what she meant by them was quite the opposite sentiment. My command of this language may not be great – I later found out that what she probably said was “amo de casa” – but my read of the speaker was dead-on: that phrase literally means "a male housewife."

To these women playing their gender-appropriate roles, I am a source of amusement – the guy who takes care of his and his girlfriend’s laundry. But even if it doesn't make sense, I'd rather think of myself as the hombre de casa, the man who is of the house – this means cooking, cleaning, and laundry, sure – but both inside and also around it. Being of a house, after all, is way more fun when that house is in a neighborhood like this one, even if the laundresses occasionally laugh at you. Everything I've been writing about our life here in Barrio Alberdi derives from the simple fact that I genuinely enjoy the errands I run around here. I go happily from shop to shop, talking to the owners, understanding less than half of what they say back to me, smiling at them awkwardly and feeling thankful that there's a script for what my response should be most of the time.

I carry my purchases in a reusable nylon shopping bag – I call it my “abuela bag” – and it’s coming back with us to Los Angeles, flexible plastic handles and all. Made of tight-knit nylon, its light-blue and white stripes are reminiscent enough of the Argentine flag to remind me where it came from. Here's hoping I can bring a bit of this barrio to wherever it is that we live next.