Saturday 23 May 2009

The elderly

After eight months of living in Nottingham city, I have perceived that many old people in the city live alone and look after themselves. It is customary to find old people who can hardly walk, walking alone in the streets carrying their groceries. For example, my neighbor is an old man. His age is about 70 and he lives alone. However, he is cleaning, washing, cooking and shopping for himself. Besides, I have not seen any body visiting him for eight months except once. In contrast, in my city, Misurata, old people can rarely be found walking alone in the streets carrying their groceries. They usually stay at home and are served by their relatives. Caring about old people is their relatives' responsibility, especially, their children. Moreover, we believe that the worship to God is not accepted from anyone does not satisfy his or her parents. For instance, my father is about 80 years old and my mother is about 70. My parent's family contains 14 members. We are 2 parents, 6 sons and 6 daughters. Although we all have our own nuclear families, we still care about our parents. We do nothing without their advice. We obey them and try not to make them angry about anything. Not only do we treat the old people respectfully, but we also bring up our children to do the same, because we will get older one day. In brief, the elderly are more respected in my city than in Nottingham.

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