Men.
This is something that interests you all, I know that for sure. So please forgive my mistakes in English, I’m writing this in a bit of a hurry right now…
Actually, I noticed a fact in Paris I had already forgotten: Frenchmen are so very feminine compared to Finnish men. Well, in Benin the division of sexes is clear: men are men and women are women, as Mika Terho praises - on several occasions - in his book (see the previous post in Finnish). It does tell something that when asking the names of workers’ children in Villa Karo, only the names of women’s children were known, but nobody remembered the names of male workers’ children. One obvious reason is that women bring their children at workplace very often, whereas men don’t.
Well, I have been meeting a lot, a lot of new people during these 10 days or so. First impressions are even stronger than in Finland, you can somehow feel the sincerity immediately and predict whom you will end up liking and whom you'll try to run away from as fast as you can. I wouldn’t want to turn down every single person even before they begin talking, but that’s when I get into these difficult situations...just too often being nice leads to having have to listen suggestions of “intimate relationships” – and me, I expected more marriage proposals than this straight-forward stuff! How naïve of me…it seems that marriage is not that common here, quite a lot of couples have children outside marriage. “It’s a matter of heart, not a contract”, as one man put it here one night last week. Another thing that seems to be common everywhere is men giving gifts and their intentions. I refused to accept a gift from a young man (said to me that he's 20, and to a bit older lady that he's 24...he's probably 16 or something!) by saing something about obligations afterwards - he replied "oh no, not all men are like that!". I had to laugh genuinely. How sweet. I've heard that before.
But it is so wonderful to have other Finnish ladies here now – they draw the attention a bit away from me! And tell me: what should I answer to a question "tu aimes les Africains?" - if I say yes, it (of course) means that I want to sleep with them, if I say no, I'm being terribly rude, don't you think? And I hope that commentaries are possible for this entry, I really don't know what I've done with the two previous ones, excusez-moi :)
Actually, I noticed a fact in Paris I had already forgotten: Frenchmen are so very feminine compared to Finnish men. Well, in Benin the division of sexes is clear: men are men and women are women, as Mika Terho praises - on several occasions - in his book (see the previous post in Finnish). It does tell something that when asking the names of workers’ children in Villa Karo, only the names of women’s children were known, but nobody remembered the names of male workers’ children. One obvious reason is that women bring their children at workplace very often, whereas men don’t.
Well, I have been meeting a lot, a lot of new people during these 10 days or so. First impressions are even stronger than in Finland, you can somehow feel the sincerity immediately and predict whom you will end up liking and whom you'll try to run away from as fast as you can. I wouldn’t want to turn down every single person even before they begin talking, but that’s when I get into these difficult situations...just too often being nice leads to having have to listen suggestions of “intimate relationships” – and me, I expected more marriage proposals than this straight-forward stuff! How naïve of me…it seems that marriage is not that common here, quite a lot of couples have children outside marriage. “It’s a matter of heart, not a contract”, as one man put it here one night last week. Another thing that seems to be common everywhere is men giving gifts and their intentions. I refused to accept a gift from a young man (said to me that he's 20, and to a bit older lady that he's 24...he's probably 16 or something!) by saing something about obligations afterwards - he replied "oh no, not all men are like that!". I had to laugh genuinely. How sweet. I've heard that before.
But it is so wonderful to have other Finnish ladies here now – they draw the attention a bit away from me! And tell me: what should I answer to a question "tu aimes les Africains?" - if I say yes, it (of course) means that I want to sleep with them, if I say no, I'm being terribly rude, don't you think? And I hope that commentaries are possible for this entry, I really don't know what I've done with the two previous ones, excusez-moi :)
Comments
- Hauska lukea näitä sun kuulumisiasi!