Avuncular Love

A picture from the archives takes us back to the summer of '04.

Avuncular Love - Uncle Ramón and Aunt Inés embrace (and embarrass?) their eldest niece, Marga, in August, 2004.

In Spain, the extended family is often very closely knit. Ramón and Inés have lived in the same apartment building as Marga's parents for over 25 years. This is changing, however, as young graduates are having to move away from their families to find work in their studied fields.

In Spanish, the words for uncle and aunt ("tí­o" and "tí­a") are also the slang equivalent to English's "guy" or "dude". So a common greeting among youths is, "¡Qué pasa, tí­o!". ("What's up, dude!")