We waited a few weeks before we started dating. There was all that defending the homeland from genocide going on. He was doing the defending. I mostly watched. What I still talk about is how he never cared that I outranked him. Too many men are intimidated by women who have more power. Or at least the perception of more power. Up until last year his job was always more important than mine. Now I would say we both do equally important work on opposite ends of the spectrum. But I still outrank him. I was always attracted to the fact that it never meant anything to him.
1 comment:
A dramatic story but marriage is hard earned thing. Culture tends to to reflect the reality here.
here is a note of mine that got published and it is cultural. How wonderful it is to lose identity... I am not a particularly huge nationalist.
Palely loitering
8 May 2012
Canadian Garry Ledouce recently relocated to Mexico after living in Switzerland. He blogs at Mexico Observer . This originally appeared in MexConnect “General Living forum”, and reprinted (with a few minor editorial changes) with Don Garry’s kind permission:
… I am a North American Indian. I get a few stares, but only because people think that I am a rather large size Mexican. I can wander for days and no one looks at me. I can spotch down on the street in a doorway and people walk around my feet without looking at me. Like Kermit said… its nice to be brown.
In Canada and in Europe it is different. In Canada I get looked at suspiciously and if I am in the west, say Saskatoon or northern Ontario, people look at me with disgust often. I get followed by security in department stores and policemen glare at me.
In Europe, i get looks of puzzlement. There is something familiar about me but people don’t get it … People smile sometimes and say, “Hey you are an Indian eh?”, or “Is it not terrible what people are doing to the wolves?”,. and that sort of stuff.
In Mexico, i just get ignored and I love it.
I see gringos a lot. wandering and palely loitering. Always in some conspiracy on a corner or darting furtively from here to there. These folks stand out. Shorts. baseball hats, red skin and the women in Mexican artisanal clothing that a Mexican would not be caught dead in except for feast days where it is a costume. And the shoes: Mexican have beautiful shoes. It seems that most have a shoe fetish for example. And everything is fashion and it is a delight.
I dress more Mexican. Long pants. pressed, golf shirt, no hat usually and a thousand yard stare. I wear good solid shoes with socks.
Dressing any other way is an insult to your neighbours. I usually give money to the beggars, certainly the old ones who need it. They really dont have pension. To the kids i say like the mexicans do, “Go to school” or “Get a job”. The usual stuff.
I always call ladies, regardless of their age, “señorita”; the boys who serve me, “joven.”; and I always refer to the elders who have stores or do expert work as either “maestro” (a carpenter etc.) or “Don”. with the persons first name — Don José or Don Miguel. It is only polite to do this. I have some even now calling me “Don Garry” — my hair is greying more each day.
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