Married with Children?

I know I usually write about what I've done, but today I just have some thoughts/questions:

It seems as though it's not so uncommon to have children but not be married... I'm not sure if maybe some of the people we ask have been married before, and that is why they are single mothers, or not.

I've noticed there are many questions, like this, to which I may never get an answer.  Like why we are often greeted with "Well done", despite having done nothing, or why people apologize if you hurt yourself, when they clearly have nothing to do with it (that one makes a bit more sense to me...)

There are also many discrepancies between years and ages/number of years.  For example, we'll be told people are a certain age and born in a certain year, and the two do not always match up.  I wonder if part of that is a cultural thing, if they possibly count age differently, or if they just don't bother keeping track as carefully as we do... it's unclear.

Another cultural difference is in personal space.  It's not much of a thing.  As Beatrice (a social work student who is our translator this week) said, once you are friends you can be free with each other.  Though on the bus apparently you can be as well, as you squeeze way too many people in and practically end up on top of strangers.

This makes dating interesting, as you can be touchy with any friend, so if you like someone, you apparently visit each other's houses a lot, and meet one another's friends.  Then the boy needs to tell the girl he is interested, and then they are dating.  (Christine told us that boys and girls who like each other will also go on lots of walks together).

It is also illegal to have a homosexual relationship, though we learned that sometimes in single sex boarding schools people end up in a relationship, and get in trouble if they are caught.  When Beatrice asked me what I think about same sex relationships, and I responded that people should be able to do what they want, she was a bit shocked, explaining that God does not want it that way.  I think maybe that is the main factor they think about, and can't get past it.

On the other hand, men here will walk around holding hands with each other, and women the same, without it being an issue.  The only issue is if a married man or married woman holds hands with someone of the opposite sex.  I wonder if that is because it is just assumed that they aren't gay, and so why would it matter if they hold hands, it's clearly just a sign of friendship here.  (I remember once I was in Spain and my sister and I were holding hands and someone told us to stop or people would think we were lesbians... clearly we just didn't care).


I think that's about it for today.  Avaran's grandmother died so I'm trying to figure out a bit about what they do here when it comes to death so I can behave appropriately.