Travel light, like a birdie

It's 4:10 on Friday, and I'm not knocking off for the day quite yet, but I am taking time to blog a little.

I had an interesting experience today. Right near my office is the girl's bathroom, and the 4-6th graders use it, along with kindergarten girls and the girls in the computer lab. I heard two girls, of indeterminate grade come up earlier today, around lunch. There was already someone in the bathroom, so they were waiting outside, giggling, talking. They're clearly local from their accents. Suddenly, one of them gets this very serious expression in her voice, and says, "I want to get married to a husband who is kind to me." The other one says, "Yeah, that would be really nice." Then they giggle as the door opens, and the occupant of the bathroom walks out.

I think to myself, "... .... What did I just hear?"

What does that say about a culture where a kid makes that their dream? How could you ever respond to that? This is just totally bizarre to me. That a culture could indoctrinate their young daughters into thinking that having a kind husband is not a right, is not an expectation? The Western, American mind boggles.

In other news, another week is down, and I have the weekend to look forward to... I think. Weekends here sometimes find me at loose ends. What to do, who to do it with...

We're the ordinary here, in more ways than I could describe. We're extraordinary people here, in more ways than meet the eye.