My mother comes from a family of 10. She and her older sister (my aunt Crasing- short for "Democracia") who is 91, are the only two siblings still around. My mother (Justicia- yes my aunt and my mother are named Justice and Democracy!), is 87 but still gets around pretty well.
We are an interesting group, us Acurantes. I am the youngest of my first cousins, the 2nd generation. My oldest cousin is 74. Yes is was sort of a weird, surreal trip but a lot of fun. Of course I found out that my "partying, social side" is part of the Acurantes gene. We all laugh a lot too and we pretty much all have the same sounding laugh. Now THAT part was weird! The third generation actually starts at around my age- confusing because those guys are my nephews and nieces although some of us are the same age!! THEN, some of my first cousins have grandchildren, which totally threw it all off.
So here is my mother and my aunt:
And here are my first cousins (along with spouses):
(that's me the coconut looking one in front lacking the official t-shirt)
Is that nuts or what? I spent a whole week trying to figure out who was who and how we were related. Add to that the fact that I speak very very little Tagalog or Visayan (the local dialect) and you can imagine what the week was like! Actually, it was a whole lot of fun because all of my nieces and nephews were good party people.I mean everyone speaks the same language over a bottle of San Miguel beer, right?
