biggish data

Thank you to all of my motivation

Goodness, this board feels like it's always dancing around the elephant in the center of the room: whether people's relationships are legitimate or whether people are deluding themselves or being deluded by a significant other; and whether the appropriate response is cheerleading or honesty. When the board swings one way, the people that believe strongly the other way disagree, and almost no one is tactful, and everyone has memories as long as an elephant.

Kind of hard to blame it on any one individual when people keep leaving and the arguments keep continuing.

Oh, is THAT what causes all the arguing in MENA? Makes some sense...

Alex+R

Female

Brazil

2007-05-05 17:22:00

IS IT EVER HOPELESS????

I wonder if the petitioner being significantly uglier than the beneficiary is a red flag...

Alex+R

Female

Brazil

2007-05-06 14:11:00

hardest parts of adjusting for mena peeps

Punctuality. People here actually expect that you're going to do something when you say you're gonna do it. Meet me at 5 does not mean meet me sometime between 6 and 7. Due dates are not suggestions. After growing up in Morocco and then 5 years in Italy, which I dare say is worse in that regard, it's been a shock. Personally, I prefer life on Italian time, but no such luck here.
if you were gonna move back to Italy.. where would you move?

Back to Genova. That's where all our friends are and I just fell in love with the Italian Riviera. Miss it so much.

Hey, Jenn, my family is having an Italian 'exchange' student (sorta, more like family friends of family friends' son) from Genova. He's 17 and my mom wants Rey and me to do a lot of the "showing him around" stuff. I'm excited. What kind of culture is he coming from in Genova?

Alex+R

Female

Brazil

2007-06-05 18:21:00

guess what?!??!

Yeah Jen! Congrats!!

Alex+R

Female

Brazil

2007-06-25 23:35:00

Eid Announcement

Happy Eid.... wait, so, there is an option to just donate money? But instead people eat sheep? Instead of donating money?

??

????

Alex+R

Female

Brazil

2007-12-18 14:14:00

the wait is hell

Wow that is beautiful!!! I havent even gotten to the stage of fixing rooms or anything...im hoping that she could be here soon so we could do it together....this really is very hard for all of us!!!! All we could do is pray and have faith!!!!!!

BYRON-LEIDY

Male

Colombia

2007-08-12 23:06:00

the wait is hell

The worst part is that when waiting for something like this , time goes by soooooo slow!!! Unlike in the morning when the alarm clock goes off when time seems to fly by sooooooooo fast and i just want 5 more minutes in bed!!! LOL... :wacko:

BYRON-LEIDY

Male

Colombia

2007-08-12 19:53:00

I'm not going to kill her, if that's what you're asking. This hasn't really been a problem in my family. Even the Christians in the family don't engage in premarital sex as part of their religious beliefs. Even the men.

What I think is that everyone has the right to decide what is best for them. Even if they are 16(14 in Brazil for girls, 13 for men. Estatistically) and not married.

Reynaldo

Male

Brazil

2007-01-05 14:55:00

The mechanisms exist from tradition, but I was taught by the Quran to follow God. Premarital sex would not please Him.

You are right. And you are exercising your right to have freedom for your religious beliefs. What if one of your daughters doesn't share those beliefs with you?

Reynaldo

Male

Brazil

2007-01-05 14:42:00

What actually is surprising to me is the number of women that are willing to travel half way across the world to marry a man who most of the time has never been out of his country and not understand his culture.

It does make one wonder.

well, understanding their culture is different than agreeing with it or validating it.

Ok, that is in their culture. I can understand why that has gotten there. But it is a wrong wrong thing to do.

And it should be on the "Things to take out of our culture" list...

Did I say it is a wrong thing to do? It is... A wrong wrong thing to do...

Brazil has this horror too. I've been there many times, sometimes on business and that involved some "crimes of passion" there. It hasn't been that long since the system there began to deal with the murder of a spouse or a girlfriend as anything other than a man's right.

Eeeyup. The difference is: Brazilian society condemns that since the 50s. But the laws regarding those issues were written in the 30s.

That is not in our culture, but Brazil is a paradise of corruption and people use loopholes in old laws to justify their acts.

Reynaldo

Male

Brazil

2007-01-05 14:39:00

No, because I'm a realist and this is reality. My stand against moral relativism applies to my interpretation of things. No interpreting needed about the fact that honor killings and the justifications for it exist. And I worked some of the cases that have been tried, so I have first hand experience even tho my own family condemns it. That doesn't mean there are no mechanisms in place to shame family members into adopting certain limits of behavior. There are; that's why I stand against premarital sex and for marriage so strongly.

You stand against premarital sex because of the shame family members will put the person in question through?

Reynaldo

Male

Brazil

2007-01-05 14:37:00

What actually is surprising to me is the number of women that are willing to travel half way across the world to marry a man who most of the time has never been out of his country and not understand his culture.

It does make one wonder.

well, understanding their culture is different than agreeing with it or validating it.

Ok, that is in their culture. I can understand why that has gotten there. But it is a wrong wrong thing to do.

And it should be on the "Things to take out of our culture" list...

Did I say it is a wrong thing to do? It is... A wrong wrong thing to do...

Reynaldo

Male

Brazil

2007-01-05 14:27:00

unlikely, given the feeding frenzy that has been occuring.......

yeah, who voted got the ballz to kill their daughter/sister, but ain't got the ballz to step up in a forum.
the poll is not asking if the one voting would kill the daughter/sister.........

Yeah, i remembered that after posting.

Well, how can someone sleep with someone with such a strong opinion on a subject and not deffend him in here?

Edited by Reynaldo, 05 January 2007 - 02:23 PM.

Reynaldo

Male

Brazil

2007-01-05 14:23:00

unlikely, given the feeding frenzy that has been occuring.......

yeah, who voted got the ballz to kill their daughter/sister, but ain't got the ballz to step up in a forum.

Reynaldo

Male

Brazil

2007-01-05 14:17:00

When did I say he said he'd do it? He said his father would. Not him. I have zero fear that my husband would do this. ZERO.

But does he accept it?

If he thinks it is right to do it, what keeps him from doing it?

Reynaldo

Male

Brazil

2007-01-05 14:16:00

Maybe we're arguing different things here. My issue is with being an American woman and accepting the fact that your husband would kill your daughter. I'm excluding the instances where he says he would but he couldn't really do it, or you know that he wouldn't actually do it, he's all talk, etc. *Why* your husband would do it is really irrelevant if your child is dead.

Again, I'm focusing on those 10 kill votes which could very well be fake.

I think they are all fake.

Someone that would do it would have stepped up by now...

Reynaldo

Male

Brazil

2007-01-05 14:13:00

and all this time i was thinking you had some capoeira trick to tell me about

But you can scare them away with some strong macumba...

Reynaldo

Male

Brazil

2007-01-04 20:34:00

A mosquito???
is there some brazilian trick i'm not aware of to kill a mosquito?

Not really...

But we do have tricks for the prevention of Dengue Fever...

And that is related to mosquitos...

But not quite...

Reynaldo

Male

Brazil

2007-01-04 20:26:00

I am also shocked about the amount of people that are with MENA men and have little or no knowledge about this. (Not you peezey)

Don't they might imply that their wives already know that?

rude? how? if nessa had a bee, or a scorpion, or a mosquito on her face, i'd esentially be slapping her to kill it.

sucker...........

A mosquito???

Edited by Reynaldo, 04 January 2007 - 08:19 PM.

Reynaldo

Male

Brazil

2007-01-04 20:20:00

A great Brazilian poet (Nelson Rodrigues) once said, and I quote: "Nem todas as mulheres gostam de apanhar, só as normais".

Another fun fact:

It creeped Alex out when she found out we have a verb for "be beaten up" and one for "be beaten the ####### out of you" in Portuguese.

Reynaldo

Male

Brazil

2007-01-04 20:08:00

Today yes, but it was not that long ago that husbands who battered their wives were seen as heroes. "a good wife is never battered" "the battered wife asked for it" "the battered wife likes it" Women were seen as out of control and husbands were expected to control them. I remember Sean Connery telling Barbara Walters once that sometimes the situation merits a woman being slapped.
i can agree with sean connery on that.

A great Brazilian poet (Nelson Rodrigues) once said, and I quote: "Nem todas as mulheres gostam de apanhar, só as normais".

Translating to english(sort of...): "Not all women like to be beaten up, just the normal ones"

But even down here we know that it is bad and the guy is an azzhole...

Reynaldo

Male

Brazil

2007-01-04 20:01:00

Ok, so I thought I knew my hubby so well. I just called him at work and asked him about this topic. Gave him the example using his sister. Oh boy, all I can say at this moment is wow oh wow. He said we will discuss this tonight when he gets home.

J

wow

Wow indeed...

Reynaldo

Male

Brazil

2007-01-04 19:42:00

People tend to make statements like that all the time, "if you do this Im gonna kill you". Most people don't mean it, some actually do.

But that isn't right either, is it?

Reynaldo

Male

Brazil

2007-01-04 17:52:00

I am still hoping that some of the votes are fake

Yeah, but the fact that there is at least ONE real vote scares me...

Reynaldo

Male

Brazil

2007-01-04 17:48:00

Why is this only a MENA poll?

There are countless cases of honor killings in the north of Brazil, all for similar reasons discussed here.

I am just trying to get a feel for how many MENA people still buy into this load of bull.

I see... But the results aren't that good...

If the majority of people believe that is ok, doesn't that stop being BS???

Reynaldo

Male

Brazil

2007-01-04 17:39:00

I wonder, our word for "tea" came from India, could our word for "living room" also be from there?
Maybe. The world is much more intertwined than we realize. Heck, I just read about archaeologists finding a Vishnu (a Hindu god) statue in the Volga region of Russia...

Interesting fact: scientists say that the languages spoken by native Brazilians in the 14th century might have been influenced by antient Phoenician. How did the Phoenicians get here? No one knows...

ETA: It is just a theory and a fun fact. No one proved that...

Edited by Reynaldo, 04 January 2007 - 05:41 PM.

Reynaldo

Male

Brazil

2007-01-04 17:37:00

Why is this only a MENA poll?

There are countless cases of honor killings in the north of Brazil, all for similar reasons discussed here.

Nevermind....

Reynaldo

Male

Brazil

2007-01-04 17:17:00

Why is this only a MENA poll?

There are countless cases of honor killings in the north of Brazil, all for similar reasons discussed here.

Reynaldo

Male

Brazil

2007-01-04 17:07:00

This is neither ME nor NA, but ... Honor Killings of Women in Albania Albania has a very strong honor code (The Kanun, it's called) which still holds a lot of sway in certain isolated parts of Albania and ethnic Albanian lands such as Kosovo.

For my husband, who is from the city and from a liberal family, the Kanun is this interesting historical document that shaped the culture of his country, but he doesn't think of it as a relavent guide for living nowadays. BUT one of the biggest insults one can say in Albania is "fukc your sister!" so there is still this idea that the women in the family bear all of the family's honor, especially the sisters/daughters.
lol, albania sounds like India. In northern india, 'kanun' means law. It is applied loosely to mean the actual laws and the code of honor. And we use 'bhenchod' as an insult too... means you fukc your sister. Another insult is "sala" which means "i fukc your sister".. "sala" by the way has a perfectly non-insulting use as well... my sisters husband will be my "sala".

Just to add some humor...

"Sala" means "living room" in Portuguese (maybe in Spanish too, i don't know)....

So, when someone says "sala" you know what they are doing and where they are doing it.

I wonder, our word for "tea" came from India, could our word for "living room" also be from there?

:ot2:

Edited by Reynaldo, 04 January 2007 - 04:52 PM.

Reynaldo

Male

Brazil

2007-01-04 16:50:00

I emailed Ewok to explain why the thread was closed and he unlocked it.

Why did he close it?

Reynaldo

Male

Brazil

2007-01-09 21:26:00

Am I seeing things?

JESUS H. TAPDANCING CHRIST!!

Wasn't this thread closed???

Reynaldo

Male

Brazil

2007-01-09 21:20:00

Reynaldo

Male

Brazil

2007-01-08 20:01:00

no daily olympics for more holy than thou in there

Catching up, eh Charles?

Reynaldo

Male

Brazil

2007-01-08 19:47:00

You can say that again...

But anyways, last time I was on a pub and people clapped was when 2 straight Swedish chicks made out....

ETA: With each other...

Edited by Reynaldo, 08 January 2007 - 07:41 PM.

Reynaldo

Male

Brazil

2007-01-08 19:38:00

You can say that again...

Reynaldo

Male

Brazil

2007-01-08 19:34:00

I apologize if I've misinterpreted something, but your posts have made me curious. You said that your great-grandfather was forced out of Israel and came to the US with his children. Israel didn't exist until 1948. How is that you are in your fifties (born in the fifties) and your father was born here in the U.S. after 1948?

The state os Israel was created in 1948, but the zionist movent existed since the late 1800s.

Some zionist organizations bought huge landmasses in the Palestine before the wars. At the time the war was over they owned roughly 50% of the Palestine.

And I read somewhere that the Arab Palestines living on zionist properties had to move... But this scrap of information I can't confirm. If that is true, maybe that is the case.

Reynaldo

Male

Brazil

2007-01-08 18:52:00