Heard in Africa - Of legacy bride and family

Just monkeying around

Legacy bride is practiced such that when a husband dies, his brother would take the widow for a wife and recognize the earlier offsprings as his own. Most people do not have family names or surnames.  You would not know who is related based on their names. 

Bison and egrets

They usually have two or three names, and one of them would be an English name - nothing carried from his father's or mother's name.  Married women retain their names.  But in urban places, prominent persons have adopted the western naming system where wives and children carry the husband's or father's surname.

Ravens on a network beacon

Mob justice is also practiced in more than a few places.  Some good Samaritans ended up being clobbered in their attempt to help.  It is common to call anyone sister or brother.  They can be real siblings or belong to the same congregation or organization.  Cousins are also introduced as sisters or brothers while relatives no matter how distant are called cousins.  No steps or halfs. 

Glad to catch this with my lens

Degree of family relationship is nothing to contend with.  Belonging to the same village is a more popular way of tracing genealogy.

The lights went out of me when I was called Momma - not a few times.  I was not sure if it meant Mother or Grandmother.  I wanted to swim with the hippos to cool down.

Hippos enjoying themselves