Aunty Khulsum

Just went to visit my dear Aunt Khulsum. She's worth blogging about because a) she's great and b) she's spectacularly placed in my family tree.

See, she happens to be my mum's khala (my mum's mum's sister), or the sister of my maternal grandmother. She also happened to have been married to one of my dad's brothers. The more astute of you will realise that this isn't as crazy as it sounds and is as acceptable as two brothers marrying two sisters - the 40 year age range between my dad's siblings kind of crossed a generation.

Anyway, this means that my mother and I share first cousins (her through her khala, me though her husband, my now deceased chacha). Which is actually great since when we're around them it puts me on the same level of respect level as my mum. It does throw a few things out of whack though - do I call these cousins brothers or uncles? And my dad is my mum's khalu's brother. What does she call him? And am I my brother's uncle or not?