Eric and I met at the CIES for tea Wednesday afternoon. We had a relaxed conversation about our weekend. It turned out that Eric became an adult over the weekend, namely 21 years old. He went to Washington DC to celebrate his birthday as he has a good friend going to college in DC. He went to see the capitol and spent time at the huge park 'The Mall' and at the Smithsonian Institute.
We spoke about legality regarding adulthood. Just like in the US,, in Burkina Faso one cannot purchase alcohol or cigarettes unless one is 21 years of age. I mentioned the paradox of being able to serve your country in the US at 18, but not being allowed to have a drink unless you are 21. I spoke about the German laws regarding alcohol and cigarettes, as one has to be 16 to purchase, but for consumption there is no age limit. You are considered a full adult at 18, at a time when you are asked to serve 18 months as a soldier if you are a male.
Then Richard and his conversation partner form China joined us. Listening in on our conversation Alam told us that there is no age limit for purchasing or consuming alcohol or smoking in China.
We ended up playing a game of 'Scrabble' at which I was embarrassingly slow and Alam got impatient with me. We resumed at 5. It was fun.
Scrabble takes time. And yes, Ruiting was a bit antsy. Haha! I told him to chill, and then he realized that I smoke, which pretty much ended Scrabble. He kept asking me, "WHY? WHY?"
ReplyDeleteIt was a good game! :)