Friendship Day

What is that anyway? Who decided we'd celebrate friendship on the first Sunday of every August? I always thought it was a Hallmark thing, but I jsut discovered (yay for Wikipedia!) that the US Congress declared it a holiday in 1935. Hmm, very interesting. I would love to read the bill/ listen to the speech that preceded the Congressional acceptance of friendship day as a national holiday. Was August just an arbitrary month, or was there a debate that led to its choosing? "We think friendship is somewhere between independence (1st week July) and hard work (1st weekend September)" or "Hmm, well January is New Years' Day, Feb is Valentine's, March is too soon after Valentines, May is Mother's Day, June if father's day, July is independence day, oh whatever, just throw it in August... no other big day coming up then, is there?" Hmm, I can feel a little story forming in my head about how the nation adopted Friendship day.

Anyway, sitting here in India, friendship day has never meant more than a few friendship bands in school, and mostly a Hallmark/ Archies phenomenon since. I don't think I ever appreciated Friendship Day before I went to Buenos Aires.

Argentines celebrate Friendship Day on July 20th, which happened to be just a few days before I was leaving the country at the end of my Study Abroad. Totally unaware that the day was Friendship Day, my friend Chris and I set out to have a last dinner together in that beautiful city. We had identified a restaurant we had been meaning to go to for many weeks, so we showed up there. All full. Oh well, we thought, we are in Palermo, the part of Buenos Aires that has at least one restaurant (and often more!) on every block. We'll find something. Nope. We walked for about-- what was it, Chris? 2 hours?. We went from restaurant to restaurant and cafe to cafe, but everyone looked at us incredulously: Today is friendship day, you should havemade your reservation weeks in advance! We finally lucked out at an all-you-can-eat Sushi place, where they only had a little table for two because most of the people waiting were in larger groups.

Later, Chris treated me to dessert at Persico's (oh, dear old Persico's! I miss that place!), and again we had some waiting to do. But we got to observe a most interesting phenomenon: every table, really, every single table, was same-sex. On an average day, if my gay best friend and I went out anywhere, we fit right in but were always mistaken for a couple (and he enjoyed that game enough to go around buying me red roses to get my host mom all worked up! Oh Chris, do you remember that kid who sold you a poem for me? :D). But that day, on friendship day, we stood out. Boys and girls aren't friends in Buenos Aires, which perhaps explained why, whenever I mentioned my "mejor amigo" in India, people would correct me by saying "'amiga', for a girl you would say 'amiga' not 'amigo'". Umm, thanks for the Spanish help, but I know what I'm saying.

Still, overall I liked the Argentina Friendship Day. It felt like an actual celebration, as important to them as Valentine's Day. Friendship seemed as important as love.

Ooh, but Argentina's rationale for Friendship Day is even more interesting. Check out this quote from Wikipedia: "The idea for Friend's Day goes back to Argentine teacher, musician, and dentist Enrique Febbraro, who lobbied to turn the anniversary of the first moon landing into an international day of friendship, along his Rotary Club de Once, in Buenos Aires. He argued that on this particular day, the whole world had been friends of the three astronauts. The first official recognition of the day came with decree No. 235/79 by the government of the province of Buenos Aires, which authorized the celebration and gave it official nature." Hahahaha, dear Argentina! Nowhere else could that rationale have emerged!

Anyway, since today is "Friendship Day," I'm going to take the opportunity for a shout out to all the friends reading this blog. To my dear friends in Delhi, in different parts of India, in Argentina, in Mexico, and to all the wonderful friends from the hill (some still there, most now scattered through the world), thank you so much for your friendship. The last few weeks have been rough, and I couldn't have made it through without all your love from different parts of the world. So thank you all for being a part of my life.