Sunday, May 19, 2013



MY FAMILY CULTURE

Imagine the following:
A major catastrophe has almost completely devastated the infrastructure of your country. The emergency government has decided that the surviving citizens will be best served if they are evacuated to other countries willing to take refugees. You and your immediate family are among the survivors of this catastrophic event. However, you have absolutely no input into the final destination or in any other evacuation details. You are told that your host country’s culture is completely different from your own, and that you might have to stay there permanently. You are further told that, in addition to one change of clothes, you can only take 3 small items with you. You decide to take three items that you hold dear and that represent your family culture.
 



The three things that I would take with me would be pictures I have of my family in a globe, my cell phone and my bible.  I chose these three items because with the family globe of pictures, it gives me joy to remember how things were; my children when they were born and some of the birthdays and other celebrations that have occurred over time.  I would take my cell phone to possibly be able to communicate with other family members and friends to find out how and if they are surviving and how things are working in our country and other parts of the globe. Also, with the phone, the world wide web is everywhere and I may be able to communicate via email, facebook or twitter with others. Also, I can pull up information, games, phone numbers and other things on my phone to help keep abreast of what’s going in on the world and also it would allow me to look up information about the country I will be living in and their culture. I chose my bible because my God is very important to me and also to continue to keep the faith and believe all things are possible even through tragedies. There may be a different religion there and it may not be possible to get a bible but I can always read it whenever I am discouraged or down because of what’s going on.  If I could only keep one thing, it would be the phone. My phone would enable me to communicate with people all over the world and find out how they are living and what’s going on in other parts of the world.
This was very interesting because I had to really think about what things I would chose and also about culture. Because my ancestors were brought to this country from Africa, my culture has basically become the dominant culture in America.

2 comments:

  1. I thought about taking my cell phone as well, but then I thought about the possibility of there being no service. I said I would take a Bible as well. I agree with you that it was a very hard decision because like you said we want to protect our African culture.

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  2. Hi Seletha,
    A cellphone and the bible are two things that I didn't list but I think they are both great things to take. The cellphone would be a way to find out what is going on in the world. The bible would be necessity because faith would have to be one of the things that would get you through the ordeal of having to leave life as we know it and join in a culture completely different from our own.

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