Tuesday, Oct. 20

I'm glad spring is here, the black clothing is beginning to disappear, and is being replaced by COLOR! After Bill spent a month here in August, he came back to say that everyone wears black, everyday. Seeing as how Bill is color-challenged anyway, I did not not believe him, until I saw it for myself, and yes, they do all wear black, all the time. Occasionally you'd see a gray skirt or pants, maybe navy blue or even dark brown, but the most popular color by far, in the winter, is black. The women all wear black tights too, it's like a uniform, and the men wear black suits, or at least black pants. So it is good to see people wearing color again (although the guys still seem very attached to their black pants.) I suppose they think it's more professional looking, but in Southern California we like color.

As far as the school system, from what we've been told, there are about 50% public schools and 50% private, and the private schools might call anything from 1st grade to 12th grade, college. They don't use the term high school, and what we would call college is university. So when we've told people that all 5 of our kids are finished with college, and they range in age from 34 to 22, they look at us strangely, and probably think we have raised a pack of knuckleheads. To just be finishing 12th grade at 22 years of age does not sound like much of an accomplishment, so we have to remember to say university, not college.