Intercultural relationships

Many problems could arise when two people from different cultures start dating or marrying. Some of them are the objection of the families, typical misunderstandings of ignoring the other’s culture, incovenients in the communication, the different ways of acting can affect the other person, conflicts with the costumes and habits of the other person, also the restrictions  of the cultures can affect the relationships, etc. As you can see all kind of problems can arise in this type of situations. We never know when are we going to be involved in a situation like this, so, it is important to be open-minded and not judge or reject other cultures because they are different.

Palenque Response

As a comparison, i can say that both groups share the same feeling of freedom. They use the music and dances to communicate the world their history, their traditions and their message to the people. With that, they make us thing in the suffering and bad experiences they have had since the colonization time, because, they have the same origin. 

As a contrast, i see that  Alvin Ailey’s dance company, focus on the past of his ancestors and in the situations they were involved. But, the Palenque people not only refer to their ancestors, but also they do an emphasis in their actual situation. They use the music to fight against the exclusion and to show how abandoned they are by Colombia’s goverment and how negligent is that goverment. They way they use to scream to the world what they are living is through the music and dance.

An important thing  to think about is that even though they live in extreme poverty conditions, they have a huge wealth in traditions, culture, family relationships, love for what they do and love for their country.

Task 4 Video about Barranquilla (Colombia)

This is a video which show us a little of Barranquilla´s culture, traditions and history. Hope you enjoy it and learn something about my city!

Holidays in other countries response

English is used in these websites to communicate to people of other cultutres their own costumes and cultural practices. As english is he universal language, they use it to share the way they celebrate their most important holidays. 

In the peruvian christmas web site, the author use english to show his perception of christmas and his experiences in it, so he is talking in first person, from his point of view, with simple vocabulary. I learned form this web that christmas celebration i Peru is so similar to the sae celebration in Colombia. We use to do some special food for dinner at 24th’s night and next we get together to share gifts and to spend time with family. 

IN the new year at Thailand website, the author is informing how is celebratd the new year in his/her country. so, her/his english is easy to understand ecause the main porpuse is to let non Thailand people know about this party. I learned form this, that celebrations around the world differ a lot from asian countries to south american countries. But also it reminds me some similar celbration we have here in Barranquilla (carnivals) in which we make water fights in the street.  

The Holi festival seems so funny. I did not know very much about india a now i learned how they celbrated their principal holidays. It is interesting that this festival is rigined by the thriump of the good over the bad. The celebration makes you want to go there jaja, because it seems it is a very enjoyable fest. Is like the carnival of blacks and whites in Pasto, where people paints their bodies with color to celebrate the white’s and black’s days. The purpose of the athor is to make people want to go to their fest. 

Finally, the holy week in Guatemala is surprising to me. What they do is wonderful, really beautiful and very similar to the “silletas” in Medellin. It is a very huge art piece. it call my attention how dedication and patient is requiered to do a beautiful “alfombra”. Also, it was surprisig to me that women carry with mourners. Here in Colombia during the holy week are very common the proccesions but carried by men. And another curious  thing is that after all that effort makig the alfombras, they are destroyed by the proccession jejeje. 

IN general all celebrations are really interesting and help us to know a little more about other cultures far from us. 

Personal Culture

As we saw in the video at the class, a sport, like surfing, hobby or music can become into a subculture. Personally, i don’t practice any sport but i know people who practice the BMX and they just don’t practice it, but also they live the subculture. They share similar preferences in music, in clothes and even in the language. They also have common interests and the same erspective of life. So it is important that some activities can become into a lifestyle. In my case, i play the violin and since i started playing, my mind, my interests and my perspective of life changed. The influence that the things we love it’s impressive.

Kiva Response

Undoubtely i would give my loan to Martha because she is the inly of the three people that has not received before a loan. Everybody deserves to get the loan and the other two women have gotten a loan before and Martha has not, so i think it is important to give her the chance of getting it. It is Martha’s time to get her loan.

Kenyan Matatu Drivers’ response

1. How are matatu drivers treated in his experience with the BBC?

R/- Matatu drivers are treated very bad, because kenyan people don’t trust in foreigners and when they saw the BBC team inside a matatu, they got angry and started fightening with them. Also, the police was so curious and wanted to know why a matatu driver was with  foreigners and what were they doing with their cameras. For that reason, police officers stopped them 5 times, just to bother and to make them that the police is the one who has the authority and control in Kenya. 

2. Do Barranquilleros have the same negative opinion of mototaxistas as the Kenyans have of matatu drivers?

 R/- Yes. For the majority of barranquilleros, mototaxistas are criminals. This stereotype started when the mototaxistas took advantage of his work to steal and hurt people. Additionally, mototaxistas didn’t respect the traffic laws and were the principal cause of accidents. Some of them changed their jobs but some others didn’t do it and continue working with motos. Although barranquilleros don’t trust in mototaxistas, there still few people who pay them for transportation. An important thing to say is that the Acaldía of Barranquilla banned the mototaxistas because of all the trouble they made. Besides that, the alcaldía established some specific days in which people cannot use their motos, and other days in which is not allowed being with passenger.  

Racism against Afrocolombians

I totally disagree with racism  in against whatever culture or community. Afrocolombians are an essential part of Colombia’s population. They are our ancestors because they started, with indegenous and spain men, our population. However, there are a lot of people that think Afrocolombians are less than white people and that is a big big lie. It is so sad to see people of the same country or even the same city, discriminating each other. It does not matter the color of the skin, or the physical appereance, the only thing that really cares is the heart of the people.  

 

What i like about the Carnival of Barranquilla

I like the queen´s differents presentation, they are so glamorous and beautiful. She spends a lot time and money to do a magnificent show.  Another interesting thing is that Barranquila´s population get excited to this party and live an enviroment of festivity before and during the celebrations. This is reflected in how people decorate their houses with symbols and characters related to the carnival. The carnival’s staff do some contest in which the best decorated houses participate, and the winner are the ones that are more original and wonderful. 

Some characters of the carnival are very old. The ‘negrita puloy’, the ‘negritos’, ‘el hombre sin cabeza’, etc are just some of the characters that have been since the origin of this party. They do part of the tradition, and i agree with traditions. So i enjoy seeing them specially the Hombre sin cabeza who tries to “kill” people with his bowie knife. It is very funny to see the negritos making a lot of different gestures that make people laugh. 

Carnivals are a very essential part of the Barranquilleros and we enjoy it and live it until the end

            Quién lo vive, es quién lo goza!