Hi everyone
How is the project going? I am enjoying reading your diaries (most of yours - come on the others!) and your reflections. I've sent a comment to last week's diaries. This week you should be discussing topics your groups have chosen - make sure you are active in the discussions, be honest even if you worry that your opinion may not be 'politically correct'.
I hope you have started watching the video footage and planning your video projects - let me know if you have any trouble.
I'm afraid we cannot have a meeting this week, but next Wednesday at 10.30 we will meet, I will confirm the room when I have found one.
Enjoy your discussions!
Francesca
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Hi mates,
RispondiEliminasorry for the late, but the video project took me a lot of time because I’m very bad with summaries and windows movie maker! But I can finish it, and I’m proud of myself and happy because I learn something new.
The third week we made some question to the others and we started a conversation. As every time our conversations were very spontaneous.
We started to talked about the role of men and women in the society and it was an interesting topic, because I discovered a lot of thing. In USA and in Germany the societies are very equal, for the law and in the reality; in the Middle East there are a lot of difference between the different countries, in Egypt and in Jordan the women are free to chose the job, but there’s still the behavior man earn money and woman do the housework, but they want to fight for change this.
Next discussion was about the different feelings for the family, because the westerns said that it’s possible to be a single parents and grown up the children in a right way; the eastern disagree with that. We have very different imagine of the family, in East doesn’t exist single parents family, except if a women is a widow or if she’s divorced.
We talked about the gays and adopted child, but after a few minutes the facilitators stopped us for talk about the readings.
Everyone disagreed with generalizations and think the pool didn’t made a real picture of the situation. Me and Amy (the US girl) think if you have a high standard of life, religions become less important; “al contrario” Sabreen and Alaa think religion doesn’t have link with the life standard, because believe in god is something different. In Islamic countries the law is link to religion and subtracted from the Coran; western countries are secolarized.
The last activity was try to become the other part after 9/11. It was so difficult because you have to think like another, but we are all open-minded and we tried to do it. At the end the talk was a little bit rude, but the time was finished so we didn’t continue the conversation.
I’m so happy about this project, it very interesting and you have a different point of view about everything. I’m shy, and sometimes is difficult for me say my opinion, but every time my self confident increase.
now I realize!I published the proof..I forgot to change one italian word..sooooo sorry, and I'm not able to change or cancelled it..
RispondiEliminaOk, the third session was nice!
RispondiEliminaWe talk about the same things of other times, but the "mood" was different...we start with a mini-game: everybody had to say how he did in a tipical his day...
we saw a lot of difference...Me and Hamed, an egyptian guy, were (maybe, are) specular.
After this we were divided into small groups, I was combined with him (Ahmed)...I think that facilitators did it purposely.
I talk with Ahmed about our families, our country, differences in our social system form women and about (obiuvsly) religion....
Then, once came back in the main room with the others, we talk with them about our conversation in small groups, and everbody said one thing that surprise him in the speech with the others.
Finally we talked on role of religion in governments and, if there is, about the power that religion have to have in the political system.
Nice turn!
I also started watching videos for my own video... and I select someone; then I mounted them and i did the video...
I didn't do it before but I think it works...maybe it is a little bit raw,but it's my first video...
See U next time!
In our last meeting we had the problem of embarrassing silence and, moreover, I was not be able to understand very well what the other said in the discussion (probably due to my lack of habit of understanding other foreigners’ accent and pronunciation). So, I became discouraged … but, thankfully, I had a chat conversation with an Egyptian boy from Soliya, met in the community blog, and I realized that it was very normal to him to stop the Soliya meeting in order to ask for an explanation or a repetition: I was not the only one in the entire community who did not understand the other speaking, or better who asked always to repeat. So, I decided to e-mail my facilitator and explained the situation. He was so happy to have an honest feedback and solved the problem (which was already noticed by him). In fact, in this meeting, first of all, he tried to break the ice giving us time to ask the other guys every question we liked. We went through it easily and we began to talk more and more, always laughing out loud!!! I became more confident and I tried always to tell the other to repeat, of course when I did not understand, sometimes being ironic about my bad situation!!!! Our topic was mainly about religion and its relation with the state and with the human rights. Our discussion ranged over a wide variety of topic about religion and I noticed that we were more confident and honest: we did not agree about some issues at all, but we always understood the others’ opinions and found a meeting point; and that was a good upshot! At the end we got so involved with our discussion that it was such a pity for us all to stop the connection!!
RispondiElimina