In hitting Buddapest, mainly, I thought it was an author who traveled to a land they were not familiar with, then made a goal to show how unfamiliar it is within their writing. This felt like a motif of sorts, introduce an alien thing, then talk about it for awhile. I think if this part of the writing was altered, it would make me immersed in the reading, I wanted to see the child's point of view of the world, not a travelers idea of how a child perceives the world.

The ethos seemed like more of a all for themselves mentality. In order to get by in life one had to do whatever it took. Also, one has to live like they're going to die soon. In the story a 10 year old girl is pregnant, she would've taken more precautions if she thought she was going to live long, or at least it seems.

The writer talks about some daily life and beliefs of the children to convey the world to us. When the kids talk about how God places the baby in the stomach, the author is saying something different tharn what most kids from America hear when they ask the same question. Little things like this are the author saying "wake up, you're not home." 

The characters are in twined with the world of the story mainly by how they stick with their beliefs instead of going with our beliefs as a culture. When it comes down to talking about America, the argument against it is that it's too far, not anything bad really, just distance. This further concretes the world of kids from another country less advanced than most due to distance not really mattering for most. But in this world, the kids are probably thinking it's far to walk or bike to.